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THE !^'0. W" 

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. 



THE 



BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY. 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE 



PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS 



ON THE SUBJECT OF 



HUMAN RIGHTS. 



STfjirtr 3Elrition— Hebiseir. 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 

NO. 143 NASSAU STREET. 



1838. 



This periodical contains five sheets. — Postage under 100 miles, 7 1-2 cts.; over 100 miles, 13 cts. 

\^Please read and circulate, e^^ 



r.AV.ected set 



TU) 



.6 



WM. S. DORR, PRINTER, 

123 Fulton Street. 



CONTENTS 



page. 

J[>HFiNiTiON OP Slavery, .►.. 5 — 9 

Negative, 6 

Affirmative, - 8 

Legal, 9 

The Moral Law against Slavery, - • • 9 — 11 

•' Thou shalt not steal," 10 

'*Thou shalt not covet," 11 

Man-stealing — Examination or Ex. xxi. 16, 12 — 17 

Seperation of man from brutes and things, 15 

Import op "Buy" and "Bought with Money," 17 — 22 

Servants sold themselves, 21 

Rights and privileges secured by Law to Servants, 23 — 25 

Servants were voluntary, • 25 — 3l 

Runaway Servants not to be delivered to their Masters, 26 

Servants were paid wages, • 32 — 36 

Masters not " Owners," 37 — 46 

Servants not subjected to the uses of property, 37 

Servants expressly distinguished from property, 38 

Examination of Gen. xii. 5.— "The souls that they had gotten," &c. 39 

Social equality of Servants and Masters, ■ . — . . 40 

Condition of the Gileonites as subjects of ihe Hebrew Commonwealth, 41 

Egyptian Bondage analyzed, 42 

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

"Cursed be Canaan," &c.— Examination of Gen. ix. 25,» • •• 46-— 48 

"For he is his Monev," &c.— Examination of Ex. xxi. 20, 21, ••• 4S— 52 

Examination of Lev. xxv. 44 — 46, 52 — 57 

" Both thy *' Bondmen, &c., shall be of the heathen," 53 

"They shall be your bondmen forever," 54 

"Ye shall take them as an inheritance," &c.. • 55 



IV CONTENTS. 

page. 
Examination of Lev. xxv. 39, 40. — The freeholder not to "serve as 

A Bond Servant," 57 — 65 

Difference between Hired and Bought Servants, 58 

Bought Servants the most f-ivored and honored class, 58 

Israelites and Strangers belonged to both classes, 60 

Israelites, servants to the S trangers, 61 

Reasons for the release of the Israelitish Servants in the seventh year, 61 

Reasons for assigning the Strangers to a longer service, 61 

Reasons for callin^r them the Servants, 62 

Different kinds of service assigned to the Israelires and Strangers,- •• 62 
Review of all the classes of Servants with the modifications of 

EACH, 66 — 68 

Political disabilities of the Strangers, 67 

Examination of Ex. xxi. 2 — 6. — "If thou buy an Hebrew servant," &c. 68 

The Canaanites not sentenced to unconditional extermination,-" 69—74 



THE 



BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY, 



The spirit of slavery never seeks shelter in the Bible, of its own 
ciccord. It grasps the horns of the altar only in desperation — rushing 
from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other unclean spirits, it 
" hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should 
be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience 
and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, 
it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the Bible, 
" seeking rest, and finding none." The law of love, glowing on 
every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. 
It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, 
as demons quailed before the Son of God, and shrieked, " Torment us 
not." At last, it slinks away under the types of the Mosaic system, 
and seeks to burrow out of sight among their shadows. Vain hope ! 
Its asylum is its sepulchre ; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. 
It flies from light into the sun ; from heat, into devouring fire ; and 
from the voice of God into the thickest of His thuaders. 

DEFINITION OF SLAVERY. 

If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must 
determine ivhat slavery is. A constituent element, is one thing ; a 
relation, another ; an appendage, another. Relations and appendages 
presuppose other things to which they belong. To regard them as 
the things themselves., or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless 
fallacies. A great variety of conditions, relations, and tenures, 

2 



6 

indispensable to the social state, are confounded with slavery ; and 
thus slavehokling becomes quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will 
specify some of these. 

1. Privation of suffrage. Then minors are slaves. 

2. Ineligibility to office. Then females are slaves. 

3. Taxation without representation. Then slaveholders in the 
District of Columbia are slaves. 

4. Privation of one'' s oath in law. Then disbelievers in a future 
retribution are slaves. 

5. Privation of trial by jury. Then all in France and Germany 
are slaves. 

6. Being required to support a particular religion. Then the peo- 
ple of England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all 
other disabilities, merely political.'] 

7. Cruelty and oppression. Wives, children, and hired domestics 
are often oppressed ; but these forms of cruelty are not slavery. 

8. Apprenticeship. The rights and duties of master and appren- 
tice are correlative and reciprocal. The claim of each upon the other 
results from his obligation to the other. Apprenticeship is based on 
the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the 
apprentice are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed, 
while the law is just to the master, it is benevolent to the apprentice. 
Its main design is rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. 
It promotes the interests of the former, while in doing it, it guards 
from injury those of the latter. To the master it secures a mere legal 
compensation — to the apprentice, both a legal compensation and a 
virtual gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. 
The law not only recognizes the right of the apprentice to a reward 
for his labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. 
The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The 
apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master. Neither 
can hold the other as property ; but each holds property in the ser- 
vices of the other, and both equally. Is this slavery? 

9. Filial subordination and parental claims. Both are nature's 
dictates and intrinsic elements of the social state ; the natural affec- 
tions which ble»d parent and child in one, excite each to discharge 
those offices incidental to the relation, and constitute a shield for 
mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the child's services, 
while a minor, is a slight return for the care and toil of his rearing, 



to say nothing of outlays for support and edacation. This provision 
is, with the mass of mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the 
family state. The child, in helping his parents, helps himself — in- 
creases a common stock, in which he has a share ; while his most 
faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot cancel. 

10. Bondage for crime. Must innocence be punished because 
guilt suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government 
without pay ; and well he may. He owes the government. A cen- 
tury's work would not pay its drafts on him. He is a public defaulter, 
and will die so. Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those 
be forced to pay who owe nothing ? The law makes no criminal, 
PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay something, 
a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government ; but it 
does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own 
its product. Are children born of convicts, government property ? 
Besides, can property be guilty ? Are chattels punished ? 

1 1 . Restraints upon freedom. Children are restrained by parents — • 
pupils, by teachers — patients, by physicians — corporations, by char- 
ters—and legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quaran- 
tine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Re- 
straints are the web of society, warp and woof. Are they slavery 1 
then civilized society is a giant slave — a government of law, the 
climax of slavery, and its executive, a king among slaveholders. 

12. Compulsory service. A juryman is empannelled against his 
will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse ; bystanders must 
turn in. Men are compelled to remove nuisances, pay fines and taxes, 
support their families, and " turn to the right as the law directs," 
however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves ? To 
confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a 
condition. The slave's yeeZzn^g-^- toward it, are one thing; the condition 
itself, is another thing ; his feelings cannot alter the nature of that 
condition. Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the 
same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of 
the slaveholder's guilt. Suppose the slave should think himself a 
chattel, and consent to be so regarded by others, does that make 
him a chattel, or make those guiltless who hold him as such? I 
may be sick of life, and I tell the assassin so that stabs me ; is 
he any the less a murderer? Does my consent to his crime, atone 
for it? my partnership in his guilt, blot out his part of it? The 



8 

slave's willingness to be a slave, so far from lessening the guilt of 
the "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind that 
he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually 
to hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the im- 
pious falsehood. These very feelings and convictions of the slave, 
(if such were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master, 
and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a 
MAN, and thus break the sorcery that cheats him out of his birth- 
right — the consciousness of his worth and destiny. 

Many of the foregoing conditions are appendages of slavery. But 
no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging 
element. 

We proceed to state affirmatively that, enslaving men is redu- 
cing THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY — making free agents, chattels — 
converting persons^ into things — sinking immortality, into merchandize. 
A slave is one held in this condition. In law, "he owns nothing, 
and can acquire nothing." His right to himself is abrogated. If he 
say my hands, my feet, my body, my mind, MYself, they are figures of 
speech. To use himself for his own good, is a crime. To keep 
what he earns^ is stealing. To take his body into his own keeping, 
is insurrection. In a word, the profit of his master is made the end 
of his being, and he, a mere means to that end — a mere means to an 
end into which his interests do not enter, of which they constitute no 
portion.* Man, sunk to a thing ! the intrinsic element, the principle 
of slavery; men, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, 
shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions, and knocked 
off at public outcry ! Their rights, another's conveniences ; their 
interests, wares on sale ; their happiness, a household utensil ; their 
personal inalienable ownership, a nci iceable article, or a plaything, 
as best suits the humor of the hour ; their deathless nature, con- 

♦ Whatever system sinks man from an end to a mere meansy just so far makes him 
& slave. Hence West India appreoticeship retains the cardinal principle of slavery. 
The apprentice, during three-fourths of his time, is still forced to labor, and robbed 
of his earnings ; just so far forth he is a mere yneans, a slave. True, in other res- 
pects slavery is abolished in the British West Indies. Its bloodiest features are blot- 
ted out — but the meanest and most despicable of all — forcing the poor to work for the 
rich without pay three fourths of their time, with a legal officer to flog them if they 
demur at the outrage, is one of the provisions of the " Emancipation Act !" For the 
glories of that luminary, abolitionists thank God, while they mourn that it rose be- 
hind clouds, and shines through an eclipse. 



science, social affections, sympathies, hopes — marketable commodi- 
ties ! We repeat it, the reduction of persons to things ; not robbing a 
man of privileges, but of himself; not loading with burdens, but making 
him a heast of burden; not restraining liberty, but subverting it; not 
curtailing rights, but abolishing them ; not inflicting personal cruelty, 
but zximhiVdiing personality ; not exacting involuntary labor, but sink- 
ing him into an implement of labor ; not abridging human comforts, 
but abrogating human nature ; not depriving an animal of immunities, 
but despoiling a rational being of attributes — uncreating a man, to 
make room for a thing ! 

That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave 
states. Judge Stroud, in his " Sketch of the Laws relating to 
Slavery," says, " The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is 
not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things — obtains 
as undoubted law in all of these [the slave] states." The law of 
South Carolina thus lays down the principle, " Slaves shall be deemed, 
held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in 
the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, ad- 
ministrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and pur- 
poses WHATSOEVER." — Brovard's Digest, 229. In Louisiana, " A 
slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs ; 
the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his 
labor ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but 
what must belong to his master." — Civ. Code of Louisiania, Art. 35. 

This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a 
person and a thing, trampled under foot — the crowning distinction of 
all others — ^alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value — 
the rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God to universal 
homage, in a baptism of glory and honor by the gift of His Son, 
His Spirit, His word. His presence, providence, and power ; His 
shield, and staff, and sheltering wing; His opening heavens, and 
angels ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, 
and a great voice in heaven, proclaiming eternal sanctions, and con- 
firming the word with signs following. 

Having stated the principle of American slavery, we ask, Does 
THE Bible sanction such a principle?* "To the law and the 

*The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character. It vouches 
for them as /acffi, not as virtues. It records without rebuke, Noah's drunkenness, 
Lot's incest, and the lies of Jacob and his mother— not only single acts, but u*a^es, 



10 

*^ testimony V First, the moral law. Just after the Israelites were 
emancipated from their bondage in Egypt, while they stood be- 
fore Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and the 
mount quaked and blazed, God spake the ten commandments from 
the midst of clouds and thunderings. Two of those commandments 
deal death to slavery. "Thou shalt not steal," or, "thou shalt 
not take from another what belongs to him." All man's powers are 
God's gift to him. That they are his own, is proved from the fact 
that God has given them to him alone, — that each of them is a part 
of himself, and all of them together constitute himself. All else that 
belongs to man, is acquired by the use of these powers. The interest 
belongs to him, because the principal does ; the product is his, because 
he is the producer. Ownership of any thing, is ownership of its use. 
The right to use according to will, is zV^eZ/" ownership. The eighth 
commandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to 
his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right 
to himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic — his 
right to whatever else that belongs to him is merely relative to this, 
is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. Self-right is the 
foundation right — the post in the middle, to which all other rights are 
fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their right to their 
slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slave- 
holder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it 
to be a self-evident proposition, that a man belongs to himself — that 
the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own title, he 
makes out the title of every human being. As the fact of being a 
man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common ti- 
tle deed. If one man's title is valid, all are valid. If one is worth- 
less, all are. To deny the validity of the slaveys title is to deny the 
validity of his own ; and yet in the act of making a man a slave, the 
slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him 
as his property who has the same title. Further, in making him a 
slave, he does not merely disfranchise the humanity of one individual, 
but of UNIVERSAL MAN. He dcstroys the foundations. He annihi- 
lates all rights. He attacks not only the human race, but universal 

such as polygamy and concubinage, are entered on the record without censure. Is 
that silent entry God's endorsement? Because the Bible in its catalogue of human 
actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and number, and write against it, 
this is a crime— does that wash out its guilt, and bleach into a virtue 7 



11 

bei?ig, and rushes upon Jehovah. For rights are rights ; God's are 
no more — man's are no less. 

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that 
which belongs to another. Slavery takes the whole. Does the same 
Bible which prohibits the taking of any thing from him, sanction the 
taking of every thing ? Does it thunder wrath against him who robs 
his neighbor of a cent, yet bid God speed to him who robs his neighbor 
of himself ? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eighth 
commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to 
take the earner, is a compound, life-long theft — supreme robbery, that 
vaults up the climax at a leap — the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that 
towers among other robberies a solitary horror, monarch of the realm. 
The eighth commandment forbids the taking away, and the tenth 

adds, " THOU SHALT NOT COVET ANY THING THAT IS THY NEIGH- 
BOR'S ;" thus guarding every man's right to himself and his property, 
by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state 
of mind which would tempt to it. Who ever made human beings 
slaves, without coveting them ? Why take from them their time, la- 
bor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to 
acquire property, to worship accordincr to conscience, to search the 
Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own 
bodies, if they do not desire them ? They covet them for purposes of 
gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification, of pride 
and ostentation. They break the tenth commandment, and pluck 
down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book. — 
Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty. — • 
Two of these brand slavery as sin. 

The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promul- 
gation of that body of laws called the " Mosaic system." Over the 
gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of 
God — "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he 

BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." 

Ex. xxi. 16. 

The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought 
for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a 
time — when the body politic became a theocracy, and reverently 
waited for the will of God. They had just been emancipated. The 
tragedies of their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, 
and peopled their memories with thronging horrors. They had just 



12 

witnessed God's testimony against oppression in the plagues of 
Egypt — the burning blains on man and beast — the dust quickened in- 
to loathsome life, and swarming upon every living thing — the streets, 
the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the car- 
cases of things abhorred — the kneading troughs and ovens, the se- 
cret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolving with the pu- 
trid death — the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the de- 
vouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born death-struck, 
and the waters blood, and last of all, that dread high hand and stretch- 
ed-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and strewed 
their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon, — 
earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation, 
and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand writing 
of God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood — a blackened 
monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No 
wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at 
such a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash 
terror on slaveholders, "i/e that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if 
he he found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death" Ex. xxi. 16. 
Deut. xxiv. 7.* God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the en- 
trance to the Mosaic system ! 

The word Gdndbh here rendered stealeth, means the taking what 
belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud ; the same word 
is used .in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both robbery and 
theft. 

The crime specified, is that of depriving somebody of the owner- 
ship of a man. Is this somebody a master ? and is the crime that of 
depriving a master of his servant ? Then it would have been " he 
that stealeth" a servant, not "he that stealeth a man" If the crime 
had been the taking an individual from another, then the term used 
would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if 
it was the relation of property and proprietor ! 

The crime is stated in a three-fold form — man stealing, selling, and 



* Jarcbi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven hundred 
years ago, in his comment on this steahng and making merchandize of men, gives 
the meaning thus :— " Using a man against his will, as a servant lawfully purchased ; 
yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, 
or use but his arm to lean on to support him, if he be forced so to act as a servant, 
the person corapeUing him but once to do so shall die as a thief, whether he has sold 
him or not." 



13 

holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty — 
DEATH. This somebody deprived of the ownership of a man, is 
the man himself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, " In- 
deed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 
15. How stolen 1 His brethren sold him as an article of merchan- 
dize. Contrast this penalty for 77ia?j- stealing with that for property- 
stealing, Ex. xxii. If a man had stolen an ox and killed or sold it, 
he was to restore five oxen ; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two 
oxen. But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the 
utmost power of punishment ; however often repeated, or aggrava- 
ted the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the 
penalty for »2a7i-stealing was death, and the penalty for property-steal^ 
ing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were 
adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be 
past labor, and his support a burden, yet death was the penalty, though 
not a cent's worth of property value was taken. The penalty for 
stealing property was a mere property penalty. However large the 
theft, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a 
greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was not the pen- 
alty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even stripes, but double of the 
same kind. Why was not the rule uniform ? When a man was stolen 
why was not the thief required to restore double of the same kind — ■ 
two men, or if he had sold him, five men ? Do you say that the 
man-thief might not have them ? So the ox-thief might not have two 
oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But if God permitted men to hold 
men as property, equally with oxen, the man-thief could get men with 
whom to pay the penalty, as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, 
when property was stolen, the legal penalty was a compensation to 
the person injured. But when a man was stolen, no property com- 
pensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would 
have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations. Com- 
pute the value of a man in money ! Throw dust into the scale against 
immortality ! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impi- 
ety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by re- 
storing double, would have been making the repetition of crime its 
atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the 
utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as 
he gave up the ghost, a testimony in blood, and death-groans, to the 
i^nfinite dignity and worth of man, — <i proclamation to the universe, 
3 



14 

voiced in mortal agony, "man is inviolable." — a confession shriek- 
ed in phrenzy at the grave's mouth — " I die accursed, and God is 
just." 

If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he pun- 
ish for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing 
any other kind of property ? Why did he punish with death for steal- 
ing a very little of that sort of property, and make a mere fine, the 
penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of 
property — especially if God did by his own act annihilate the differ- 
ence between man a,nd property, by putting him on a level with it ? 

The atrociousness of a crime, depends much upon the nature, char- 
acter, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the 
thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is 
theft ; to steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I 
steal my neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the 
nature of the article, but in shifting its relation from him to me. But 
when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and 
then my property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the for- 
mer case, dwindles to nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the 
transfer from its owner to another of that which is already property, 
but the turning of personality into property. True, the attributes of 
man remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them 
are annihilated. It is the first law both of reason and revelation to 
regard things and beings as they are ; and the sum of religion, to 
feel and act toward them according to their value. Knowingly to 
treat them otherwise is sin ; and the degree of violence done to their 
nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When things are 
sundered which God has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, 
which he has separated by infinite extremes ; when sacred and eter- 
nal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and 
set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to its " scarlet dye." The 
sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the nature o( 
a man — to his intrinsic value as a rational being, and blotting out the 
exalted distinction stamped upon him by his Maker. In the verse 
preceding, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. 
Verse 15, " He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be 
put to death." V. 17, " He that curseth his father or his mother, shall 
surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law mere- 
ly smote him in. return ; but if the blow was given to a parent, it 



15 

struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the centre of hu- 
man society. God guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is 
to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that no relation 
had any sacredness in his eyes — that he was unfit to move among 
human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender. There- 
fore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the 
ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious 
inroads. 

Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act ? Ansvv^er. (1.) 
The relation violated was obvious — the distinction between parents 
and others manifest, dictated by natural affection — a law of the con- 
stitution. (2.) The act was violence to nature — a suicide on consti- 
tutional susceptibilities. (3.) The parental relation then, as now, 
was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safe- 
guards. " Honor thy father and thy mother^'' stands at the head of 
those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man ; and, 
throughout the Bible, the parental state is God's favorite illustration 
of his own relations to the whole human family. In this case death 
was to be inflicted not for smiling a man, but a -parent — a distinction 
cherished by God, and around which. He threw up a bulwark of de- 
fence. In the next verse, " He that stealeth a man," &c., the same 
PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be 
punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, 
but the doing violence to an immortal nature, blotting out a sacred 
distinction, making men " chattels." The incessant pains taken in 
the Old Testament to separate human beings from brutes and things, 
shows God's regard for his own distinction. 

" In the beginning" it was uttered in heaven, and proclaimed to 
the universe as it rose into being. Creation was arrayed at the in- 
stant of its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while God 
ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause and that 
creating arm held back in mid career and that high conference in 
the godhead ? " Let us make man in our image after our like- 
ness, AND LET HIM HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over 
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." Then 
while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and mar- 
shalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars — then "God 

CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE ; IN THE IMAGE OF GoD CREATED 

HE KIM." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, 
CREATED HE HIM. Well might the sons of God shout, '♦Amen, 



16 

alleluia"—" For thou hast made him a little lovrer than the angelsf^ 
and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to 
have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things 
under his feet." Ps. viii. 5, 6. The repetition of this distinction is 
frequent and solemn. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is repeated in various 
forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, "in the likeness of God 
MADE HE MAN." lu Gen. ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed 
the blood of " every moving thing that liveth," it is added, " Whoso 
sheddeth mail's blood, hy man shall his blood be shed, for in the image 
OF God made he man." As though it had been said, " All these 
creatures are your property, designed for your use — they have the 
likeness of earth, they perish with the using, and their spirits go 
downward ; but this other being, man, has my own likeness : " in 
THE IMAGE OF GoD made I man ;" " an intelligent, moral, immortal 
agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be." So in Lev. xxiv, 
17, 18, 21, " He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death ; 
and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast ; and he 
that killeth a man shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, what 
an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely men from 
brutes and things ! (1-) " Thou hast made him a little lower than the 
angels.-'' Slavery drags him down among brutes. (2.) ^^ And hast 
crowned him with glory and honor.'^ Slavery tears off his crown, and 
puts on a yoke. (3.) " Thou madest him to have dominion over the 
works of thy hands.''^ Slavery breaks the sceptre, and casts him 
down among those works — yea, beneath them. (4.) " Thou hast put 
all things under his feet."" Slavery puts him under the feet of an 
" owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dares thus strive with his 
Maker, and mutilate his image, and blaspheme the Holy One, who 
saith, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these y ye did it 
unto ME." 

In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic sys- 
tems will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the oth- 
er, and as many regulations of the latter are mere legal forms of Di- 
vine institutions previously existing. As a system, the latter alone is 
of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs, 
God has not made them our exemplars.* 

♦Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such deliaht under 
their shadow, hymning the praises of " those good old pa;riarchs and slaveholders," 
might at small cost greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza celebrating pa- 
triarchal concubinage, winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal drunken- 



ir 

Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants un- 
der these two states of society, we will consider the import of cer- 
tain terms which describe the mode of procuring them. 

IMPORT OF "buy," and "BOUGHT WITH MONEY." 

As the Israelites were commanded to " buy" their servants, and as 
Abraham had servants " bought with money," it is argued that ser- 
vants were articles of property. The sole ground for this belief is 
the terms themselves. How much might be saved, if in discussion, 
the thing to be proved were always assumed. To beg the question in 
debate, would be vast economy of midnight oil ! and a great fore- 
staller of wrinkles and grey hairs! Instead of protracted investiga- 
tion into Scripture usage, with painful collating of passages, to find 
the meaning of terms, let every man interpret the oldest book in the 
world by the usages of his own time and place, and the work is 
done. And then instead of one revelation, they might be multiplied 
as the drops of the morning, and every man have an infallible clue to 
the mind of the Spirit, if he only understood the dialect of his own 
neighborhood ! What a Babel-jargon it would make of the Bible to 
take it for granted that the sense in which words are now used is the 
inspired sense, David says, " I prevented the dawning of the morn- 
ing, and cried." What, stop the earth in its revolution ! Two hun- 
dred years ago, prevent was used in its strict Latin sense to come he- 
fore, or anticipate. It is always used in this sense in the Old and 
New Testaments. David's expression, in the English of the nine- 
teenth century, would be " Before the dawning of the morning I cried." 
In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used in a sense now 
nearly or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense totally oppo- 
site to their present meaning. A few examples follow : " I purpo- 
sed to come to you, but was let (hindered) hitherto." " And the four 
beasts (living ones) fell down and worshipped God," — " Whosoever 
shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones," — " Go out into the 
highways and compel (urge) them to come in," — " Only let your con- 
versation (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel," — " They 
that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me," — "■ So when tribulation 

ness, would be a trumpet call, summoning from bush and brake, highway and hedge, 
and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming Abraham or 
Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, " My name is legion." What a myriad 
choir and thunderous song. 



18 

or persecution ariseth hy-and-hy (immediately) they are offended." 
Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are 
always throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as 
they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal 
suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up 
for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak 
within bounds) for a modern Bible Dictionary maker. There never 
was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached 
to a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that 
fashionable mantuamakers were not a little quicker at taking hints 
from some Doctors of Divinity. How easily they might save their 
pious customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings 
of fashion, by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency 
now flaunting on promenade, was the very style of dress in which 
the pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels, and the modest Rebec- 
ca drew water for the camels of Abraham's servants. Since such 
fashions are rife in Broadway now, they rnust have been in Canaan 
and Padanaram four thousand years ago ! 

The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of 
servants, means procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the 
fallacy, that whatever costs money is money ; that whatever or who- 
ever you pay money /or, is an article of property, and the fact of 
your paying for it proves it property. The children' of Israel were 
required to purchase their first-born from under the obligations of the 
priesthood. Num. xviii. 15, 16; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom 
still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe 
the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or are, 
held as property ? They were hovght as really as were servants. 
(2.) The Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls. 
This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were 
their souls therefore marketable commodities ? (3.) Bible saints 
hought their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. " So Ruth the Moabitess, 
the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife." Ruth iv. 10. 
Hosea bought his wife. " So I hought her to me for fifteen pieces of 
silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley." 
Hosea iii. 6. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah, and not 
having money, paid for them in labor — seven years a piece. Gen. 
xxix. 15 — 29. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way, 
and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father. Exod. ii. 



19 

21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah, 
says, " Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give accor- 
ding as ye shall say unto me." Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purcha- 
sed Michal, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services for 
their fathers. 1 Sam. xviii. 25—27; Judg. i. 12, 13. That the 
purchase of wives, either with money or by service, was the general 
practice, is plain from such -passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam. 
xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews this usage exists, though now a 
mere form, there being no real purchase. Yet among their marriage 
ceremonies, is one called " marrying by the penny." The coinci- 
dences in the methods of procuring wives and servants, in the terms 
employed in describing the transactions, and in the prices paid for 
each, are worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and 
servants was the same. Comp. Deut. xxii. 28, 29, and Ex. xxii. 17, 
with Lev. xxvii. 2 — 8. The medium price of wives and servants 
was the same. Comp. Hos. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems to 
have paid one half in money and the other half in grain. Further, 
the Israelitish female bought servants were wives, their husbands and 
masters being the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If 
buying servants proves them property, buying wives proves them 
property. Why not contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the 
faithful were their " chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch ; 
and thence deduce the rights of modern husbands 1 Alas ! Patri- 
archs and prophets are follovi^ed afar off! When will pious husbands 
live up to their Bible privileges, and become partakers with Old Tes- 
tament worthies in the blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities ! 
Refusing so to do, is questioning the morality of those " good old pa- 
triarchs and slaveholders, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." 

This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to the Hebrew. In the 
Syriac, the common expression for " the espoused," is "the bought." 
Even so late as the 16th century, the common record o^ marriages 
in the old German Chronicles was, "A bought B." 

The word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by the 
nature of the subject to. which it is applied. Eve said, " I have gotten 
(bought) a man of the Lord." She named him Cain, that is bought. 
•' He that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv. 
32. So in Isa. xi. 11. "The Lord shall set his hand again to reco- 
ver (to buy) the remnant of his people." So Ps. Ixxviii. 54. " He 
brought them to this mountain which his right hand had purchased,^'' 



20 

(gotten.) Jer.xiii. 4. " Take the girdle that thou hast got" (bought.) 
Neh. V. 8. "We of our ability have redeemed (bought) our brethren that 
were sold to the heathen." Here " bought''^ is not applied to persons re- 
duced to servitude, but to those taken out of it. Prov. 8. 22. " The 
Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of his way." Prov. 
xix. 8. " He that getteth (buyeth) wisdom loveth his own soul." 
Finally, to buy, is a secondary meaning of the Hebrew word Kdnd. 

Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of 
servants, where slavery is aboUshed. In the British West Indies, 
where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still "bought." 
This is the current word in West India newspapers. Ten years 
since servants were " bought in New-York, as really as in Virginia, 
yet the different senses in which the word was used in the two states, 
put no man in a quandary. Under the system of legal indenture in 
Illinois, servants now are " bought "* Until recently immigrants 
to this country were " bought" in great numbers. By voluntary con- 
tract they engaged to work a given time to pay for their passage. 
This class of persons called " redemptioners," consisted at one time 
of thousands. Multitudes are " bought" out of slavery by themselves 
or others. Under the same roof with the writer is a " servant bought 
with money." A few weeks since, she was a slave ; when "bought" 
she was a slave no longer. Alas ! for our leading politicians if "buy- 
ing" men makes them " chattels." The Whigs say that Benton and 
Rives are " bought " by the administration ; and the other party, that 
Clay and Webster are " bought " by the Bank. The histories of the 
revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was " bought " by British gold. 
When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country 
gossip thus hits off the indecency, " The cotton bags bought him." 
Sir Robert Walpole said, "Every man has his price, and whoever will 
pay it, can buy him," and John Randolph said, " The northern dele- 
gation is in the market ; give me money enough, and I can buy them ;" 
both meant just what they said. The temperance publications tell us 
that candidates for office buy men with whiskey ; and the ora- 
cles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury, in the 

♦The following statute is now in force in the free state of Illinois— " No negro, 
mulatto, or Indian, shall at any time purchase any servant other than of their 
own complexion : and if any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to purchase a 
white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall be so held, deem-. 
«d and taken," 



21 

late trial of Robinson were bought, yet we have no floating visions of 
" chattels personal," man auctions, or coffles. 

The transaction between Joseph and the i^gyptians gives a clue to 
the use of "buy" and '• bought with money." Gen, xlvii. 18 — 26. 
The Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the 
bargain was closed, Joseph said, " Behold I have bought you this 
day," and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons 
bought as articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on cer- 
tain conditions, to pay for their support during the famine. The idea 
attached by both parties to " buy us," and " behold I have bought 
you," was merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by 
contract, in return for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians 
were bereft of their personal ownership, and made articles of proper- 
ty. And this buying of services (in this case it was but one-fifth 
part) is called in Scripture usage, buying the persons. This case 
claims special notice, as it is the only one where the whole transac- 
tion of buying servants is detailed — the preliminaries, the process, 
the mutual acquiescence, and the permanent relation resulting there- 
from. In all other instances, the mere fact is stated without particu- 
lars. In this case, the whole process is laid open. (1.) The per- 
sons " bought," sold themselves, and of their own accord. (2.) Ob- 
taining permanently the services of persons, or even a portion of 
them, is called " buying " those persons. The objector, at the out- 
set, takes it for granted, that servants were bought of third persons ; 
and thence infers that they were articles of property. Both the al- 
leged fact and the inference are sheer assumptions. No instance is 
recorded, under the Mosaic system, in which a master sold his ser- 
vant. That servants who were " bought" sold themselves, is a fair in- 
ference from various passages of Scripture. 

In Leviticus xxv. 47, the case of the Israelite, who became the 
servant of the stranger, the words are, " If he sell himself unto 
the stranger." The same word, and the same form of the word, 
which, in verse 47, is rendered sell himself, is in verse 39 of the 
same chapter, rendered Z>e sold ; in Deut. xxviii. 68, the same word is 
rendered " be sold." " And there ye shall be sold unto your ene- 
mies for bond-men and bond-women and no man shall buy you." 
How could they " be sold " without being bought 1 Our translation 
makes it nonsense. The word Makar rendered " 5e .so/c? " is used 
here in the Hithpael conjugation, which is generally reflexive in its 
force, and, like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an indi- 
4 



22 

vidual does for himself, and should manifestly have been rendered^ 
'^ ye shall offer yourselves for sale, and there shall be no purchaser." 
For a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25-— 
" Thou hast sold thyself to work evil. " There was none like to 
Ahab that sold himself to work wickedness." — 2 Kings xvii. 17. 
" They used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do 
evil." — Isa. 1. 1. " For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves^ 
Isa. lii. 3, "Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be re- 
deemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv. 14 — Romans vii. 14, 
vi. 16 — John viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, 
already quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, 
it is generally stated that they were bought of third persons. If ser- 
vants were bought of third persons, it is strange that no instance of 
it is on record. 

II- — The leading design of the laws relating to 

SERVANTS, WITH THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SE- 
CURED TO THEM. 

The general object of the laws defining the relations of master 
and servant, was the good of both parties — more especially the good 
of the servants. While the master's interests were guarded from in- 
jury, those of the servants were promoted. These laws made a mer- 
ciful provision for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Stran- 
gers, not laying on burdens, but lightening them — they were a grant 
of privileges 2indi favors. 

I. No servant from the Strangers, could remain in the family of 
an Israelite, without becoming a proselyte. Compliance with this 
condition was i\ie price of the privilege. — Gen. xvii. 9 — 14, 23, 27. 

II. Excommunication from the family was a punishment. — Gen. 
xxi. 14. Luke xvi. 2 — 4. 

III. Every Hebrew servant could compel his master to keep him 
after the six years contract had expired. This shows that the system 
was framed to advance the interests and gratify the wishes of the 
servant quite as much as those of the master. If the servant de- 
manded it, the law obliged the master to retain him, however little he 
might need his services. Deut. xv. 12—17. Ex. xxi. 2—6. 

IV. The rights and privileges guarantied by law to all servants. 



23 

1. They were admitted into covenant with God. Deut. xxix. 
10—13. 

2. They were invited guests at all the national and family festivals. 
Ex. xii. 43—44 ; Deut xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10—16. 

3. They were statedly instructed in morality and religion. Deut- 
xxxi. 10—13 ; Josh. viii. 33—35 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 8—9. 

4. They were released from their regular labor nearly one half 
OF THE WHOLE TIME. During which they had their entire support, 
and the same instruction that was provided for the other members of 
the Hebrew community. 

(a) The Law secured to them the whole of every seventh year ; 
Lev. XXV. 3 — 6 ; thus giving to those who were servants during the 
entire period between the jubilees, eight vjhole years, including the 
jubilee year, of unbroken rest. 

(b.) Every seventh day. This in forty-two years, the eight being 
subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just six years. 

(c.) The three annual festivals. The Passover, which commen- 
ced on the 15th gf the 1st month, and lasted seven days, Deut. xvi. 3, 
8. The Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, which began on the 6th day 
of the 3d month, and lasted seven days. Lev. xvi. 10, 11. The 
Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the 15th of the 7th 
month, and lasted eight days. Deut. xvi. 13, 15 ; Lev. xxiii. 34 — 39. 
As all met in one place, much time would be spent on the journey. 
Cumbered caravans move slowly. After their arrival, a day or two 
would be requisite for divers preparations before the celebration, be- 
sides some time at the close of it, in preparations for return. If we 
assign three weeks to each festival — including the time spent on the 
journeys, and the delays before and after the celebration, together 
with the festival week, it will be a small allowance for the cessation 
of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the 
main body of the servants would be absent from their stated employ- 
ments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount in forty-two 
years, subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days. 

(d.) The new moons. The Jewish year had twelve ; Josephus 
says that the Jews always kept two days for the new moon. See 
Calmet on the Jewish Calendar, and Home's Introduction ; also 1 
Sam. XX. 18, 19, 27. This in forty-two years, would be two years 
280 days. 



24 

(e.) The feast of trumpets. On the first day of the seventh month, 
and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25. 

(f.) The atonement day. On the tenth of the seventh month. 
Lev. xxiii. 27. 

These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not 
reckoned above. 

Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the pe- 
riod between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, 

TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, 

and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. 
In this calculation, besides making a donation of all the fractions to 
the objector, we have left out those numerous local festivals to which 
frequent allusion is made, Judg. xxi. 19 ; 1 Sam. ix. etc., and the va- 
rious /«m% festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at mar- 
riages ; at sheep shearings ; at circumcisions ; at the making of cove- 
nants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam. xx. 28, 
29. Neither have we included the festivals instituted at a later period 
of the Jewish history. The feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29 ; and 
of the Dedication, which lasted eight days. John x. 22 ; 1 Mac. 
iv. 59. 

Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants', an amount of time 
which, if distributed, would be almost one half of the days in 
EACH year. Meanwhile, they were supported, and furnished with 
opportunities of instruction. If this time were distributed over 
every day, the servants would have to themselves nearly one half of 
each day. 

This is a regulation of that Mosaic system which is 
claimed by slaveholders as the prototype of American 

Slavery. 

V. The servant was protected by law equally with the other mem- 
bers of the community. 

Proof. — " Judge righteously between every man and his neigh- 
bor, and THE stranger that is with him." " Ye shall not re- 
spect persons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as 
the great." Deut. i. 16, 17. Also Lev. xxiv. 22. " Ye shall have 
one manner of law as well for the stranger, as for one of your own 
country." So Numb. xv. 29. " Ye shall have one law for him that 
sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the chil- 



25 

dren of Israel' and for the straxger that sojourneth among them." 
Deut. xxvii. 19. " Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment 
OF the stranger." 

VI. The Mosaic system enjoined the greatest affection and kind- 
ness toward servants, foreign as well as Jewish. 

Lev. xix. 34. "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto 
you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Al- 
so Deut. X. 17, 19. " For the Lord your God * * regardeth not 
persons. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and wid- 
ow, and LOVETH the stranger, in giving him food and raiment, 
love ye therefore the stranger." So Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou 
shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him." Ex. xxiii. 9. "Thou 
shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger." 
Lev. XXV. 35, 36. " If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve 
him, yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live 
with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." 
Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and 
held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights ! 

VII. Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in all 
civil and religious rights. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14. Deut. i. 
16, 17. Lev. xxiv. 22. 

III. — Did persons become servants voluntarily, 

OR were THEY MADE SERVANTS AGAINST THEIR WILLS? 

We argue that they became servants of their own accord. 
I. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was 
to abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God,* be circumcised in 



* Maimonides, who wrote in Egypt about seven hundred years ago, a contempo- 
rary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the head of Jewish writers, gives the 
following testimony on this point : 

" Whether a servant be born in the power of an IsraeHte, or whether he be pur- 
chased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant. 

" But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day, and he that is bought 
with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be un- 
willing. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master is 
to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, 
for one year. After which, should here/use so long, it is forbidden to keep him, long- 
er than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence 



26 

token of it, bound to keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, 
and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the 
moral and ceremonial law. Were the servants forced through all 
these processes 1 Was the renunication of idolatry compulsory ? 
Were they dragged into covenant with God ? Were they seized and 
circumcised by main strength ? Were they compelled mechanically 
to chew, and swallow the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they ab- 
horred the institution, spurned the laws that enjoined it, detested its 
author and its executors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance 
which it commemorated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the 
day of its consummation 1 Were they driven from all parts of the 
land three times in the year to the annual festivals ? Were they 
drugged with instruction which they nauseated ? Goaded through a 
round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries ; 
and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations ? 
We repeat it, to become a servant, was to become k proselyte. And 
did God authorize his people to make proselytes, at the point of the 
sword ? by the terror of pains and penalties ? by converting men in- 
to merchandise 1 Were proselyte and chattel synonymes, in the Di- 
vine vocabulary ? Must a man be sunk to a thing before taken into 
covenant with God ? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, 
and the sole passport to the communion of the saints ? 

II. We argue the voluntariness of servants from Deut. xxiii. 15, 
16, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is 
escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even 
among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates 
where it liketh him best ; thou shalt not oppress him." 

As though God had said, " To deliver him up would be to recog- 



he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the worship of a wil- 
ling heart."— Mamon,Hilcoth Miloth, Chap. 1st, Sec. 8th. 

The ancient Jewish Doctors assert thai the servant from the Strangers who at the 
close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish religion and was on that 
account sent back to his own people, received a full covipensation for his services, 
besides the payment of his expenses. But i\vat postponement of the circumcision of 
the foreign servant for a year {or even at all after he had entered the family of an Is- 
raelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been a mere usage. We 
find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system. Circumcision was mani- 
festly a rite strictly initiatory. Whether it was a rite merely national or spiritual^ 
or hoth^ comes not within the scope of this inquiry. 



27 

nize the right of the master to hold him ; his fleeing shows his cJioice 
■ — proclaims his wrongs and his title to protection ; you shall not 
force him back and thus recognize the right of the master to hold 
him in such a condition as induces him to flee to others for protec- 
tion." It may be said that this command referred only to the servants 
of Ae«^/iew masters in the surrounding nations. We answer, the terms 
of the command are unlimited. But the objection, if valid, would 
merely shift the pressure of the difliculty to another point. Did God 
require them to protect the free choice of a single servant from the 
heathen, and yet authorize the same persons, to crush the free choice 
of thousands of servants from the heathen ? Suppose a case. A 
foreign servant flees to the Israelites ; God says, " He shall dwell 
with thee, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates 
where it liketh him best." Now, suppose this same servant, instead 
of coming into Israel of his own accord, had been dragged in by 
some kidnapper who bought him of his master, B.nd forced him into a 
condition against his will ; would He who forbade such treatment of 
the stranger, who voluntarily came into the land, sanction the same 
treatment of the same person, provided in addition to this last outrage, 
the previous one had been committed of forcing him into the nation 
against his will ? To commit violence on the free choice of a for- 
eign servant is forsooth a horrible enormity, provided you hegin the 
violence after he has come among you. But if you commit thej^r^^ 
act on the other side of the line ; if you begin the outrage by buy- 
ing him from a third person against his will, and then tear him from 
home, drag him across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him 
as a slave — ah ! that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the vi- 
olence now with impunity ! Would greater favor have been shown 
to this new comer than to the old residents — those who had been 
servants in Jewish families perhaps for a generation ? Were the Is- 
raelites commanded to exercise toward him, uncircumcised and out of 
the covenant, a justice and kindness denied to the multitudes who 
were circumcised, and within the covenant ? But, the objector finds 
small gain to his argument on the supposition that the covenant re- 
spected merely the fugitives from the surrounding nations, while it 
left the servants of the Israelites in a condition acrainst their wills. 
In that case, the surrounding nations would adopt retaliatory mea- 
sures, and become so many asylums for Jewish fugitives. As these 
nations were not only on every side of them, but in their midst, such 



28 

a proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men whose condi- 
tion was a constant counteraction of will. Besides the same command 
which protected the servant from the power of his foreign master, 
protected him equally from the power of an Israelite. It was not, 
" Thou shait not deliver him unto his master,^'' but "he shall dwell with 
thee, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it 
liketh him best." Every Israelite was forbidden to put him in any 
condition against his will. What was this but a proclamation, that all 
who chose to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to their 
own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to such per- 
sons, and in such places as they pleased ? Besides, grant that this 
command prohibited the sending back of foreign servants merely, 
there was no law requiring the return of servants who had escaped 
from the Israelites. Property lost, and cattle escaped, they were re- 
quired to return, but not escaped servants. These verses contain 
1st, a command, " Thou shalt not deliver," &c., 2cl, a declaration of 
the fugitive's right of free choice, and of God's will that he should ex- 
ercise it at his own discretion ; and 3d, a command guarding this 
right, namely, " Thou shalt not oppress him," as though God had 
said, "If you restrain him from exercising his own choice, as to the 
place and condition of his residence, it is oppression.''^ 

III. We argue the voluntariness of servants from their peculiar 
opportunities and facilities for escape. Three times every year, all 
the males over twelve years, were required to attend the national 
feasts. They were thus absent from their homes not less than three 
weeks at each time, making nine weeks annually. As these cara^ 
vans moved over the country, were there military scouts lining the 
way, to intercept deserters ? — a corporal's guard at each pass of the 
mountains, sentinels pacing the hill-tops, and light horse scouring 
the defiles ? The Israelites must have had some safe contrivance 
for taking their " slaves" three times in a year to Jerusalem and back. 
When a body of slaves is moved any distance in our republic, they 
are hand-cuffed and chained together, to keep them from running 
away, or beating their drivers' brains out. Was this the Mosaic plan, 
or an improvement introduced by Samuel, or was it left for the wis- 
dom of Solomon 1 The usage, doubtless, claims a paternity not less 
venerable and biblical ! Perhaps they were lashed upon camels, and 
transported in bundles, or caged up, and trundled on wheels to and 
fro, and while at the Holy City, " lodged in jail for safe keeping," 



29 

tlie Sanhedrim appointing special religious services for their benefit, 
and their "drivers" officiating at "oral instruction." Mean while, what 
became of the sturdy ka?idmaids\eh at home? What hindered them from 
marching off in a body ? Perhaps the Israelitish matrons stood sen- 
try in rotation round the kitchens, while the young ladies scoured the 
country, as mounted rangers, picking up stragglers by day, and pa- 
trolled the streets, keeping a sharp look-out at night. 

IV. Their continuance in Jewish families depended upon the per- 
formance of various rites necessarily voluntary. 

Suppose the servants from the heathen had upon entering Jewish 
families, refused circumcision ; if slaves, how simple the process of 
emancipation ! Their refusal did the job. Or, suppose they had 
refused to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten unleavened bread 
during the Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the anointing 
oil, they would have been " cut off from the people ;" excommuni- 
cated. 

V, We infer the voluntariness of the servants of the Patriarchs 
from the impossibility of their having been held against their wills. 
Abraham's servants are an illustration. At one time he had three 
hundred and eighteen young men " born in his house," and many 
more not born in his house. His servants of all ages, were probably 
MANY THOUSANDS. How Abraham and Sarah contrived to hold fast 
so many thousand servants against their wills, we are left quite in 
the dark. The most natural supposition is that the Patriarch and his 
wife took turns in surrounding them ! The neighboring tribes, instead 
of constituting a picket guard to hem in his servants, would have 
been far more likely to sweep them and him into captivity, as they 
did Lot and his household. Besides, there was neither " Constitu- 
tion " nor " compact," to send back Abrahams's fugitives, nor a truck- 
ling police to pounce upon them, nor gentleman-kidnappers, suing for 
his patronage, volunteering to howl on their track, boasting their 
blood-hound scent, and pledging their " honor" to hunt down and 
" deliver up," provided they had a description of the " flesh-marks," 
and were suitably stimulated by pieces of silver. Abraham seems 
also to have been sadly deficient in all the auxiliaries of family gov- 
ernment, such as stocks, hand-cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and 
thumb-screws. His destitution of these patriarchal indispensables is 
the more afl[licting, since he faithfully trained "his household to do 
justice and judgment," though so deplorably destitute of the needful aids. 

5 



30 

VI. We infer that servants were voluntary, as there is no instance 
of an Israelitish master selling a servant. Abraham had thousands 
of servants, but seems never to have sold one. Isaac " grew until he 
became very great," and had " great store of servants." Jacob's 
youth was spent in the family of Laban, where he lived a servant 
twenty-one years. Afterward he had a large number of servants. 
Joseph sent for Jacob to come into -Egypt, " thou and thy children, 
and thy children's children, and thy flocks and thy herds, and all 
THAT THOU HAST." Jacob took his flocks and herds but no servants. 
Gen. xlv. 10; xlvii. 16. They doubtless, served under their own 
contracts, and when Jacob went into Egypt, they chose to stay in 
their own country. The government might sell thieves, if they had 
no property, until their services had made good the injury, and paid 
the legal fine. Ex. xxii. 3. But masters seem to have had no power 
to sell their servants. To give the master a right to sell his servant, 
would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own disposal ; 
but says the objector, " to give the master a right to huy a servant, 
equally annihilates the servant's right of choice.'^ Answer. It is 
one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a different thing to have 
a right to buy him of another man.* 

Though servants were not bought of their masters, yet young fe- 
males M^ere bought of their fathers. But their purchase as servants 
was their betrothal as wives. Ex. xxi. 7, 8. " If a man sell 
his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men- 
servants do. If she please not her master who hath betrothed 
HEB TO himself, he shall let her be redeemed."! 

VII. We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in commen- 
cing his service, because he was pre-eminently so in continuing it. 
If, at the year of release, it was the servant's choice to remain with 
his master, the law required his ear to be bored by the judges of the 
land, thus making it impossible for him to be held against his will. 

* There is no evidenoe that masters had the power to dispose of even the services 
of their servants, as men hire out their laborers whom they employ by the year; but 
whether they had or not, affects not the argument. 

t The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows : " A Hebrew hand- 
maid might not be sold but to one who laid himself umlor obligations, to espouse her 
to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed." — Maimonides — Hilcolh — 
Obedim, Ch. IV. Sec. XI. Jarchi, on ihe same passage, says, "He is bound to es- 
pouse her and take her to be his wife, for the money of her purchase is the money of 
her espousal." 



31 

Yea more, his master was compelled to keep him, however much he 
might wish to get rid of him. 

VIII. The meth-od prescribed for procuring servants, was an ap- 
peal to their choice. The Israelites were commanded to offer them 
a suitable inducement, and then leave them to decide. They might 
neither seize them hy force, nor frighten them by threats, nor wheedle 
them by false pretences, nor borrow them, nor beg them ; but they 
were commanded to buy them ;* that is, they were to recognize the 
right of the individuals to dispose of their own services, and their 
right to refuse all offers, and thus oblige those who made them, to do 
their own work. Suppose all, with one accord, had refused to become 
servants, what provision did the Mosaic law make for such an emer- 
gency ? None. 

IX. Various incidental expressions corroborate the idea that ser 
vants became such by their own contract. Job xli. 4, is an illustra- 
tion, " Will he (Leviathan) make a covenant with thee 1 wilt thou 
take him for a servant forever ? 

X. The transaction which made the Egyptians the servants of 
Pharaoh was voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18 — 26. Of 
their own accord they came to Joseph and said, " We have not aught 
left but our bodies and our lands ; buy us ;" then in the 25th verse, 
" We will be servants to Pharaoh." 

XI. We infer the voluntariness of servants, from the fact that rich 
Strangers did not become servants. Indeed, so far were they from 
becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held Jewish ser- 
vants. Lev. XXV. 47. 

XII. The sacrifices and offerings which all were required to 
present, were to be made voluntarily. Lev. i. 2, 3. 

XIII. Mention is often made of persons becoming servants where 
they were manifestly and pre-eminently voluntary. As the Pro- 
phet Elisha. 1 Kings xix. 21 ; 2 Kings iii. 11. Elijah was his 
master. The word, translated master, is the same that is so rendered 
in almost every instance where masters are spoken of under the Mo- 
saic and patriarchal systems. Moses was the servant of Jethro. 
Ex. iii. 1. Joshua was the servant of Moses. Num. xi. 28. Jacob 
was the servant of Laban. Gen. xxix. 18 — 27. 



* The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they had earned enough to 
make resiitution to the person wronged, and to pay the legal penalty, stands by itself, 
and has nothing to do with the condition of servants. 



32 



lY. — Were the servants forced to work 

WITHOUT PAY? 

As the servants became and continued such of their own accordj 
it would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their 
becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That 
they were paid for their labor, we argue, 

I. Because God rebuked in thunder, the sin of using the labor of 
others without wages. " Wo unto him that buildeth his house by un- 
righteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neigh- 
bor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work." 
Jer. xxii. 13. God here testifies that to use the service of others 
without wages is " unrighteousness," and pronounces his " wo " 
against the doer of the " wrong." The Hebrew word i?e«, translated 
neighbor, does not mean one man, or class of men, in distinction from 
others, but any one with whom we have to do — all descriptions of 
persons, even those who prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while 
in the act of fighting us — "As when a man riseth against his neigh- 
bor and slayeth him." Deut. xxii. 26. " Go not forth hastily to 
strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy 
neighbor hath put thee to shame." Prov. xxv. 8. "Thou shalt not 
bear false witness against thy neighbor." Ex. xx. 16. If any man 
come presumptuously upon his neighbor to slay him with guile." 
Ex. xxi. 14, &c. 

II- God testifies that in our duty to our fellow men, all the law 
and the prophets hang upon this command, " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." Our Savior, in giving this command, quoted 
verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system. Lev. xix. 18. In 
the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses applies this law to the 
treatment of Strangers, " The stranger that dwelleth with you shall 
be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as 
thyself." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them work 
for us without pay ; to rob them of food and clothing also, would be 
a stronger illustration still of the law of love ! /Si/pcr-disinterested 
benevolence ! And if it be doing unto others as we would have 
them do to us, to make them work for our own good alone, Paul 
should be called to order for his hard sayings against human nature, 
especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, " No man ever yet 
hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it." 



33 

III. As persons became servp.nts from poverty, we argue that 
they were compensated, since they frequently owned property, and 
sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, gave 
David a princely present, " An hundred leaves of bread, and an hun- 
dred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bot- 
tle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can 
be inferred from the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he 
had twenty servants. In Lev. xxv .57 — 59, where a servant, reduced 
to poverty, sold himself, it is declared that he may be redeemed, either 
by his kindred, or by himself. Having been forced to sell himself 
from poverty, he must have acquired considerable property after he 
became a servant. If it had not been common for servants to ac- 
quire property over which they had the control, the servant of Eli- 
sha would hardly have ventured to take a large sum of money, (near- 
ly $3000*) from Naaman, 2 Kings v. 22, 23. As it was procured by 
deceit, he wished to conceal the means used in getting it ; but if ser- 
vants, could " own nothing, nor acquire any thing," to embark in such 
an enteprise would have been consummate stupidity. The fact of 
having in his possession two talents of silver, would of itself con- 
vict him of theft.f But since it was common for servants to own 



* Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the relative value of that 
sum, then and now, yet we have enough to warrant us in saying that two talents of 
silver, had far more value then than three thousand dollars have now. 

t Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states steaHng a large amount of 
money'? They "know how to take care of themselves''' quite too well for that. When 
they s'eal, they aie careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of such 
things as will raike detec;ion difficult. No doubt they steal nov^ and then a little, 
and a griping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they not follow in the 
footsteps of their masters and mistresses \ Dull scholars indeed ! if, after so many les- 
sons from 'proficients in the art, who drive the business by wholesale, they should not 
occasionally copy their betters, fall into ihe fashion, and try their hand in a small way, 
at a practice which is the only permanent and universal business carried on around 
them! Ignoble truly ! never to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting to imitate 
the eminent pat:ern set before them in the daily vocation of "Honorables" and "Excel- 
lences," and to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and Right 
and Very Reverends! Hear President' Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on Vir- 
ginia, pp. 207-8, sfeaking of slaves, he says, "That disposition to theft with which 
they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any special 
depravity of the moral sense. It is a problem which I give the master to solve, 
whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for 
HIM as well as for his slave — and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little, 
from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may slay one who would slay him V* 



34 

property he might have it, and invest or use it, without attracting 
special attention, and that consideration alone would have been a 
strong motive to the act. His master, while rebuking him for using 
such means to get the money, not only does not take it from him, but 
seems to expect that he would invest it in real estate, and cattle, and 
would procure servants with it. 2 Kings v. 26. We find the servant of 
Saul having money, and relieving his master in an emergency. 1 
Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the servant of Elah, was the owner of a house. 
That it was somewhat magnificent, would be a natural inference from 
it's being a resort of the king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. The case of the Gib- 
eonites, who after becoming servants, still occupied their cities, and 
remained in many respects, a distinct people for centuries ; and that 
of the 150,000 Canaanites, the servants of Solomon, who worked out 
their " tribute of bond-service " in levies, periodically relieving each 
other, are additional illustrations of independence in the acquisition 
and ownership of property. 

IV. Heirship. — Servants frequently inherited their master's prop- 
erty ; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the 
family. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham ; Ziba, the servant of Me- 
phibosheth, Jarha the servant of Sheshan, and the husbandmen who 
said of their master's son, "this is the heir, let us kill him, and the 
INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustratious ; also Prov. xvii. 2 — 
*'A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and 

SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." 

This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives 
and dauofhters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and 
plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent con- 
tingences, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands 
for their daughters ? 

V. All were required to present offerings and sacrifices. Deut. 
xvi. 15, 17. 2Chron. xv. 9 — 11. Numb. ix. 13. Servants musthave 
had permanently, the means of acquiring property to meet these ex- 
penditures. 

VI. Those Hebrew servants who went out at the seventh year, 
were provided by law with a large stock of provisions and cattle. 
Deut. XV. 11 — 14. "Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy 
flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that where- 
with the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him."* If 

* The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows—" * Thou shalt fur- 



35 

it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a Hke 
bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of 
Israelitish servants, the free-holders ; and for the same reason, they 
did not go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee. If 
the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a gratuity 
proves that they were robbed of their earnings, it proves that the 
most valued class of Hebrew, servants were robbed of theirs also ; a 
conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however un- 
scrupulous. 

VII. The servants were bought. In other words, they received 
compensation in advance. Having shown, under a previous head, 
that servants sold themselves, and of course received the compensation 
for themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of 
their children till they became of age,t a mere reference to the fact 
is all that is required for the purposes of this argument. 

VIII. We find masters at one time having a large number of ser- 
vants, and afterwards none, without any intimation that they were 
sold. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in busi- 
ness for themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty- 
one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and was the mas- 
ter of many servants. Gen. xxx. 43, xxxii. 15. But all these ser- 
vants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless 
acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 
10, 11 ; xlvi. 1—7, 32. 

IX. God's testimony to the character of Abraham. Gen. xviii. 
19. " For I know him that he will command his children and his 
household after him, and they shall keep, the way of the Lord 
TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." God here testifies that Abraham 
taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of 
the Lord " respecting the payment of wages where service was ren- 
dered ? " Wo unto him that useth his neighbor's service without 
M^AGEs !" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that 
which is JUST and equal." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their 

nish him liberally,' &c. "That i? to say, ^Loading, ye ihall load him,' likewise every 
one of his family, with as much as he can take with him — abundant benefits. And 
if it be avariciously asked, ' How much must I give him?" I say unto you, not less 
than thirty shekels, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared in Ex. xxi. 32." — 
Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chop. ii. Sec. 3. 

t Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen years. 



36 

DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. " The laborer is worthy of his hire." Luke 
X. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to " do justice'' to others? 
By doing injustice to them ? Did he exhort them to " render to all 
their dues" by keeping back their own ? Did he teach them that "the 
laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs ? Did he 
beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and 
labor ? Did he teach them " not to defraud" others " in any matter" 
by denying them " what was just and equal ?" If each of Abraham's 
pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in jus- 
tice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical les- 
sons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness ! 

X. Specific precepts of the Mosaic law enforcing general principles. 
Out of many, we select the following : (1.) " Thou shalt not muzzle 
the ox that treadeth out the corn," or literally, while he thresheth. 
Deut. XXV, 4, Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. 
The ox representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular 
kind of service, all kinds ; and a law requiring an abundant provision 
for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way, — a 
general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instru- 
mentalities of service. The object of the law was ; not merely to 
enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of reward- 
ing those who serve us ; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both 
for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what 
would be a meet return for the services of man ? — man with his 
varied wants, exalted nature and iuimortal destiny! Paul says ex- 
pressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. 
ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not 
muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God 
take care for oxen ? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes ? that 
he that plowetli sliould jilow in hope, and that he that thresheth in 
hope should be partaker of his hope." (2.) " If thy brother be 
waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve 
him, YEA, THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER tliat lie may 
live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy 
God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him 
thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35—37. Now, we ask, by 
what process of pro-sUivery legerdemain, this regulation can be 
made to harmonize with theidoctrine of work without pay? Did 
God declare the poor stranger entitled to relief, and in the same 



37 



breath, authorize them to *' use his services without wages ;" force 
him to work and rob him of his earnings ? 

V. — Were masters the proprietors of servants as 

LEGAL PROPERTY ? 

The discussion of this topic has already been somewhat antici- 
pated, but a variety of additional considerations remain to be noticed. 

I. Servants were not subjected to the uses nor liable to the con- 
tingencies of property. (1.) They were never taken in payment for 
their masters' debts, though children were sometimes taken (without 
legal authority) for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1 ; Job xxiv. 9 ; 
Isa. 1., 1 ; Matt, xviii. 25. Creditors took from debtors property of all 
kinds, to satisfy their demands. Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken ; Prov. 
xxii. 27, household furniture ; Lev. xxv. 25 — 28, the productions of 
the soil ; Lev. xxv. 27 — 30, houses ; Ex. xxii. 26 — 29, Deut. xxiv. 
10 — 13, Matt. V, 40, clothing ; but servants ^exe taken in no instance. 
(2.) Servants were never given as pledges. Property of all sorts 
Was given in pledge. We find household furniture, clothing, cattle, 
money, signets, and personal ornaments, with divers other articles 
of property, used as pledges for value received ; but no servants. 
(3.) All lost PROPERTY was to be restored. Oxen, asses, sheep, 
raiment, and " whatsoever lost things," are specified — servants not. 
Deut. xxii. 13. Besides, the Israelites were forbidden to return the 
runaway servant. Deut. xxiii. 15. (4.) The Israelites never gave 
away their servants as presents. They made costly presents, of 
great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of animals, merchandise, 
family utensils, precious metals, grain, armor, &c. are among their 
recorded gifts. Giving presents to superiors and persons of rank, 
was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27 ; 1 Sam. xvi. 20 ; 2 Chron. 
xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27 ; Jacob to the viceroy 
of Egypt, Gen. xiiii. 1 1 ; Joseph to his brethren and father. Gen. 
xlv. 22, 23 ; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9 ; Ahaz to Tig- 
lath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 8 ; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 
Kings x. 13 ; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3 ; Asa to Benhadad, 
1 Kings XV. 18, 19. But no servants were given as presents — though 
it was a prevailing fashion in the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16 ; 
Gen XX. 14. It may be objected that Laban gave handmaids to his 
daughters, Jacob's wives. Without enlarging on the nature of the 
6 



38 

polygamy then prevalent suliice it to say that the handmaids of 
wives were regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and author- 
ity. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse 
upon Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, and Chron. v. 1 ; also by the equality of 
their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had it been 
otherwise — had Laban given them as articles of property, then, in- 
deed, the example ot this " good old patriarch and slaveholder," 
Saint Laban, would have been a forecloser to all argument. Ah ! we 
remember his jealousy for religion — ^his holy indignation when he 
found that his " gods " were stolen ! How he mustered his clan, 
and plunged over the desert in hot pursuit, seven days, by forced 
marches ; how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of 
every tent, little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or 
female seclusion, for lo ! the zeal of his " images " had eaten him 
up ! No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dis- 
mantled before the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a 
pious worthy to haul up and refit ; invoking his protection, and the 
benediction of his '' gods ! " Again, it may be objected that, ser- 
vants Avere enumerated in inventories of property. If that proves 
servants property, it proves loives property. " Thou shalt not covet 
thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor 
his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any 
thing that is thy neighbor's." Ex. xx. 17. la inventories of mere pro- 
perty if servants are included, it is in such a way, as to show that they are 
not regarded as property. See Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But when the design is to 
show, not merely the wealth, but the greatness of any personage, 
servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word, if riches alone 
are spoken of, no mention is made of servants ; if greatness, ser- 
vants and property. Gen. xiii. 2. " And Abraham was very rich in 
cattle, in silver and in gold," So in the fifth verse, " And Lot also had 
flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse servants are 
mentioned, " And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abra- 
ham's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle." See also Josh. xxii. 
8 ; Gen. xxxiv. 23 ; Job xlii. 12 ; 2 Chron. xxi. 3 ; xxxii. 27 — 29 ; 
Job i. 3 — 5 ; Deut. viii. 12 — 17 ; Gen. xxiv. 35, xxvi. 13, xxx. 43. 
Jacob's wives say to him, " All the riches which thou hast taken from 
our father that is ours and our children's." Then follows an inventory 
of property. " All his cattle," " all his goods," " the cattle of his get- 
ting." He had a large number of servants at the time but they are not 



39 

included with his property. Comp. Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 
] 5 — 18. When he sent messengers to Esau, wishing to impress him 
with an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him not only of 
his RICHES, but of his GREATNESS ; that Jacob had " oxen, and assess 
and flocks, and men'-servants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. 
Yet in the present which he sent, there were no servants ; though 
he seems to have sought as much variety as possible. Gen. xxxii. 
14, 15 ; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7 ; Gen. xxxiv. 23. As flocks and 
herds were the staples of wealth, a large number of servants presup- 
posed large possessions of cattle, which would require many herds- 
men. When servants are spoken of in connection with mere property , 
the terms used to express the latter do not include the former. The 
Hebrew word Mikne, is an illustration. It is derived from Kand, to 
procure, to buy, and its meaning is, a possession, icealth, riches. It 
occurs more than forty times in the Old Testament, and is applied 
always to me7'e property, generally to domestic animals, but never to 
servants. In some instances, servants are mentioned in distinction 
from the Mikne. "And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot 
his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered ; 
and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to 
go into the land of Canaan." — Gen. xii. 5. Many will have it, that, 
these souls Avere a part of Abraham's substance (notwithstanding the 
pains here taken to separate them from it) — that they were slaves 
taken with him in his migration as a part of his family efl^ects. Who 
but slaveholders, either actually or in heart, would torture into the 
principle and practice of slavery, such a harmless phrase as " the 
souls that they had gotten V Until the slave trade breathed its haze 
upon the vision of the church, and smote her with palsy and decay, 
commentators saw no slavery in, " The souls that they had gotten." 
In the Targum of Onkelos* it is rendered, " The souls whom they 
had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Targum of Jonathan, 
** The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran." In the 

* The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament. The 
Targum of Onkebs is, for the most part, a very accurate and faithful translation of the 
original, and was probably made at about the commencement of the Christian era. 
The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, bears about the same date. The Targum of 
Jerusalem was probably about five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their 
captivity in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language. These translations into 
the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by 
the necesiitv of the case. 



40 

Targnni of Jerusaltim, " The souls- proselyted in Harau." Jarchi, 
the prince ol" Jewish commentators, " The souls whom they had 
brought under the Divine wings." Jerome, one of the most learned 
of the Christian fathers, " The persons whom they had proselyted." 
The Persian version, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the 
Samaritan all render it, " All the wealth which they had gathered, 
and the souls which they had made in Haran." Menochius, a com- 
mentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible, ren- 
ders it, '* Quas de idolatraria converterant," " Those whom they 
had converted from idolatry." — Paulus Fagius.* •' Quas instituerant 
in religione." Those whom they had established in religion." Luke 
Francke, a German commentator who lived two centuries ago. 
"Quas legi subjiccrant." — "Those whom they had brought to obey 
the law." 

II. The condition and treatment of servants make the doctrine 
that they were mere commodities, an absurdity. St. Paul's testimony 
in Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants : " Now I say unto you, 
that the heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a 
SERVANT, though he be lord of all." That Abraham's servants were 
voluntary, that their interests were identified with those of their 
master's family, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, 
is shown in their being armed. — Gen. xiv. 14, 15. When Abraham's 
servant went to Padanaram,the young Princess Rebecca did not dis- 
dain to say to him, '* Drink, my Lord," as " she hasted and let down 
her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the brother 
of Rebecca, " ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash 
his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!" In 1 Sam. ix. is 
an account of a festival in the city of Zuph,at which Samuel presided. 
None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only " about thirty 
persons" were invited. Quite a select party ! — the elite of the city. 
Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and both of them, at 
Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Sam- 
uel took Saul and his servant, and brought them into the parlor (!) 
and made them sit in the chiefest seats among those that were 
bidden." A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in 

* This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to superintend the transla- 
tion of the Bible into English, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had 
hardly commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a century before th« 
data of our present translation. 



41 

Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with hit 
master, who was at the same time anointed King of Israel ! and this 
servant introduced by Samuel into the parlor, and assigned, with his 
master, to the chiefest seat at the table ! This was " one of the ser- 
vants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the steward or the chief of them — 
not at all a picked man, but "one of the servants ;" any one that could 
be most easily spared, as no endowments specially rare would be 
likely to find scope in looking after asses. Again: we find Elah,the 
King of Israel, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his 
steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms 
of familiarity. — 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9. See also the intercourse between 
Gideon and his servant. — .Tudg. vii. 10, 11. Jonathan and his ser- 
vant. — 1 Sam. xiv. 1 — 14. Elisha and his servant. — 2 Kings iv.v. vi. 
III. The case of the Gibeonites. The condition of the inhabit- 
ants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the 
Hebrew commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of 
slavery ; and truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can 
be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit 
that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under 
tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something 
to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it would never have 
clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon 
cauldron, could not extract from their case enough to tantalize starva- 
tion's self. But to the question. What was the condition of the 
Gibeonites under the Israelites 1 (\.) It was voluntary. Their own 
proposition to Joshua was to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was 
accepted, but the kind of service which they should perform, was not 
specified until their gross imposition came to light; they were then 
assigned to menial oflices in the Tabernacle. (2.) They were not do- 
mestic servants in the families of the Israelites. They still resided in 
their own cities, cultivated their own fields, tended their flocks and 
herds, and exercised the functions of a distinct, though not indepen- 
dent community. They were subject to the Jewish nation as tribu- 
taries. So far from being distributed among the Israelites, and their 
internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they remained a 
separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many 
centuries. When attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Is- 
raelites as confederates for aid — it was rendered, their enemies rout- 
ed, and themselves left unmolested in their cities. Josh. x. 6 — 18. 



42 

Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel 
a three years' famine for it. David inquired of the Gibeonites, "What 
shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement ?" 
At their demand, he delivered up to them, seven of Saul's descendants. 
2 Sam. xxi. 1 — 9. The whole transaction wa? a formal recogni- 
tion of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no intimation 
that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites, but only the 
" house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at 
Gilgal, a day's journey from their cities ; and then at Shiloh, nearly 
two day's journey from them ; where it continued about 350 years. 
During this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and 
territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any 
one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made 
to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home. It 
is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities 
could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great 
city, as one of the royal cities ;" so large, that a confederacy of five 
kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed neces- 
sary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided in- 
to classes, ministering in rotation — each class a few days or weeks 
at a time. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, 
for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. 
No service seems to have been required of the females. As these 
Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the 
Israelites by impudent imposition, and lying, we might assuredly ex- 
pect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels if there 
was any case in which God permitted them to do so. 

IV. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against 
holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the 
Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their 
prison-house ! What motives to the exercise of justice and kind- 
ness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened 
judgments ; to their hopes in promised good ; and to all within them 
that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror ! 
" For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt" — waking anew the 
memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them. 

God's denunciations against the bondage of Egypt make it incum- 
bent on us to ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, 
and what they retained. 



43 



Egyptian bondage analyzed. (1.) The Israelites were not 
dispersed among the families of Egypt,* but formed a separate com- 
munity. Gen. xlvi. 35. Ex. viii. 22, 24 ; ix. 26 ; x. 23 ; xi. 7 ; ii. 
9 ; xvi. 22 ; xvii. 5. (2.) They had the exclusive possession of the 
land of Goshen.t Gen. xlv. 18 ; xlvii. 6, 11,27. Ex. xii. 4, 19, 22, 
23, 27. (3.) They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, 
not tents. In Ex. xii. 6, 22, the two side posts, and the upper door 
posts, and the lintel of the houses are mentioned. Each family 
seems to have occupied a house 5y itseJf, — Acts vii. 20. Ex. xii. 4 — 
and judging from the regulation about the eating of the Passover, they 
could hardly have been small ones, Ex. xii. 4, probably contained 
separate apartments, and places for concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3 ; Acts 
vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. 
To have had their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv. 11, 
(4.) They owned " a mixed multitude of flocks and herds," and 
"very much cattle." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38. (5.) They had their own 
form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, 
and their internal organization throughout, though still a province of 
Egypt, and tributary to it. Ex. ii. 1 ; xii. 19, 21 ; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; 
iii. 16, 18. (6.) They seem to have had in a considerable measure, 
the disposal of their own time, — Ex. xxiii. 4; iii. 16, 18, xii. 6 ; ii. 
9; and iv. 27, 29 — 31. And to have practiced the fine arts. Ex. 
xxxii. 4 ; xxxv. 22 — 35. (7.) They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. (8.) 
They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem 
to have regarded them as inviolable. No intimation is given that the 
Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their 
flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any arti- 
cle of property. (9.) All the females seem to have known something 
of domestic refinements ; they were familiar with instruments of mu- 
sic, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20 ; xxxv. 25, 26. 
(10.) Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. 
Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be in- 



* The Egyptians evidently had domestic servants living in their families ; these 
may have been slaves ; allusion is made to them in Ex. ix. 14, 20, 21. 

t The land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of the Pelusian arm of the 
Nile, and between it and the head of the Red Sea, and the lower border of Palestine. 
The probable centre of that portion, occupied by the Israelites, could hardly have been 
less than sixty miles from the city. The border of Goshen nearest to Egypt must have 
been many miles distant. See " Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt," an able arti- 
cl« by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical Repository for October, 1832. 



44 

ferred ; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and th» 
payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a 
supposition. Ex. ii. 29. (11.) So far from being fed upon a given 
allowance, their food was abundant, and of great variety. " They 
sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3 ; 
xxiv. 1 ; xvii. 5 ; iv. 29; vi. 14; " they did eat fish freely, and cu- 
cumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic," Num. 
xi. 4, 5; X. 18 ; xx. 5. (12.) The great body of the people were 
not in the service of the Egyptians, (a.) The extent and variety 
of their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their 
crops as would provide them with bread, and such care of their 
immense flocks and herds,, as would secure their profitable in-» 
crease, must have furnished constant employment for the main 
body of the nation, (b.) During the plague of darkness, God in- 
forms us that " ALL the children of Israel had light in their dwell- 
ings." We infer that they were there to enjoy it. (c.) It seems im- 
probable that the making of brick, the only service named during the 
latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have furnished permanent 
employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex. iv. 29 — 31. 
Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was as 
now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given 
quota, drafted ofi* periodically, so that comparatively but a small 
portion of the nation would be absent at any one time. Probably 
one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the 
Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. 
Instead of taking it from their crops, (Goshen being better for 
pasturage) they exacted it of them in brick making ; and it is quite 
probable that labor was exacted only from the poorer Israelites, the 
wealthy being able to pay their tribute in money. Ex. iv. 27 — 31. 
Contrast this bondage of Egypt with American slavery. Have our 
slaves " very much cattle," and " a mixed multitude of flocks and 
herds ?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own, " sit by the 
flesh-pots," " eat fish freely," and " eat bread to the full ?" Do they 
live in a separate community, in their distinct tribes, under their own 
rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an extensive tract of country 
for the culture of their crops, and for rearing immense herds of their 
own cattle — and all these held inviolable by their masters ? Are 
our female slaves free from exactions of labor and liabilities of out- 
•rage ? or when employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish 



45 

Woman by the king's daughter 1 Have they the disposal of their own 
time, and the means for cuhivating social refinements, for practising 
the fine arts, and for personal improvement ? The Israelites un- 
der THE BONDAGE OF EgYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND 

PRIVILEGES. True, " all the service wherein they made them serve 
was with rigor." But what was this when compared with the inces- 
sant toil of American slaves, the robbery of all their time and earn- 
ings, and even the power to own any thing, or acquire any thing ?" 
a " quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food ! * their onli/ 
clothing for one half the year, " one shirt and one pair of panta- 
loons If " two hours and a half only,. for rest and refreshment in the 
twenty-four !| — their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence, 
with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promis- 
cuously at night, like the beasts of the field. Add to this, the igno- 
rance, and degradation; the daily sunderings of kindred, the revelries 
of lust, the lacerations and baptism.s of blood, sanctioned by law, and 
patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt 
when compared with this ? And yet for her oppression of the poor, 
God smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she 
passed away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, 
knew her no more. Ah ! " I have seen the afflictions of my people, 
and I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." 
He DID COME, and Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed 
over her. If such was God's retribution for the oppression of 
heathen Egypt, of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian peo- 
ple be thought worthy, who cloak with religion a system, in compari- 
son with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing ? Let 
those believe who can that God commissioned his people to rob 
others of all their rights, while he denounced against them wrath to 
the uttermost, if they practised i\\e far lighter oppression of Egypt — 
which robbed its victims of only the least and cheapest of their 
rights, and left the females unplundered even of these. What ! Is God 
divided against himself? When He had just turned Egypt into a 
funeral pile ; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and 
his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her tor- 
ment went upwards because she had " robbed the poor," did He 

* Law of N. C. Haywood's Manual 524—5. 

T Law of La. Martin's Digest, 610. 

t Law of La. Act of July 7, 1806. Martin's Digest, 610-12. 

7 



46 

license the victims of robbery to rob the poor of all ? As Law- 
giver, did he create a system tenfold more grinding than that for which 
he had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes, 
and his hosts, till " hell was moved to meet them at their coming ? " 
We now proceed to examine various objections which will doubt- 
less be set in array against all the foregoing conclusions. 

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wits end in 
pressing the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them 
hard-pushed. Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions, 
and blind guesswork, proclaim both their cause desperate, and them- 
selves. The Bible defences thrown around slavery by professed 
ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and 
historical facts it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, igno- 
rance, or blasphemy, predominates, in the compovmd ; each strives so 
lustily for the mastery, it may be set down a drawn battle. How 
often has it been bruited that the color of the negro is the Cain-mark, 
propagated downward. Cain's posterity started an opposition to the 
ark, forsooth, and rode out the flood with flying streamers ! Why 
should not a miracle be wrought to point such an argument, and fill 
out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed, vindicating the ways of God 
to man ? 

Objection I. " Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he 
be unto his brethren." Gen. ix. 25. 

This prophecy of Noah is the vade mecum of slaveholders, and 
they never venture abroad without it ; it is a pocket-piece for sudden 
occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, 
and a magnet to draw around their standard " whatsoever worketh 
abomination or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor 
drug to ease a throbbing conscience — a mocking lullaby, to unquiet 
tossings, and vainly crying " Peace be still," where God wakes war, 
and breaks his thunders. Those who justify negro slavery by the 
curse on Canaan, assume all the points in debate. (1.) That slavery 
was prophesied rather than mere service to others, and individual 
bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. (2.) That the pre- 
diction of cxime justifies it ; at least absolving those whose crimes fulfill 
it, if not transforming the crimes into virtues. How piously the Pha- 



47 

raohs might have quoted the prophecy " Thy seed shall he a stranger 
in a land that is not theirs, and they shall affiict them four hundred 
years.''^ And then, what saints were those that cr;icified the Lord of 
glory! (3.) That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Where- 
as Africa was peopled from Egypt and Ethiopia, and they were set- 
tled by Mizraim and Cush. For the location and boundaries of 
Canaan's posterity, see Gen. x. 15 — 19. So a prophecy of evil to 
one people, is quoted to justify its infliction upon another. Perhaps 
it may be argued that Canaan includes all Ham's posterity. If so, 
the prophecy is yet unfulfilled. The other sons of Ham settled 
Egypt and Assyria, and, conjointly with Shem, Persia, and after- 
ward, to some extent, the Grecian and Roman empires. The his- 
tory of these nations gives no verification of the prophecy. Whereas, 
the history of Canaan's descendants for more than three thousand 
years, records its fulfilment. First, they were put to tribute by the 
Israelites ; then by the Medes and Persians ; then by the Macedo- 
nians, Grecians and Romans, successively; and finally, were subject- 
ed by the Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan 
has been for ages the servant mainly of Shem and Japhet, and 
secondarily of the other sons of Ham. It may still be objected, that 
though Canaan alone is named in the curse, yet the 22d and 24th 
verses show the posterity of Ham in general to be meant. " And 
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told 
his two brethren without." " And Noah awoke from his wine, and 
knew what his younger son had done unto him, and said," &c. It 
is argued that this '■^younger son" can not be Canaan, as he was the 
grandson of Noah, and therefore it must be Ham. We answer, who- 
ever that " younger son" was, Canaan alone was named in the curse. 
Besides, the Hebrew word Ben, signifies son, grandson, or any 
of one the posterity of an individual. " Know ye Lahan the son 
of Nahor ?" Laban was the grandson of Nahor. Gen. xxix. 5. 
" Mephihosheth the son of Saul." 2 Sam. xix. 24. Mephibosheth 
was the grandson of Saul. 2 Sam. ix. 6. " There is a son horn to 
Naomi." Ruth i v. 17. This was the son of Ruth, the daughter-in- 
law of Naomi. ^^ Let seven men of his (SauVs) sons he delivered 
unto us. 2 Sam. xxi. 6. Seven of Saul's grandsons were delivered up. 
Lahan rose up and kissed his sons." Gen. xxi. 55. These were his 
grandsons. " The driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi." 2 Kings ix. 20. 
Jehu was i^ie grandson of Nimshi. Shall we forbid the inspired writer to 



48 

use the same word when speaking of Nodi's grandson 1 Further, 
Ham was not the " younger son. The order of enumeration makes 
him the second son. If it be said that Bible usage varies, the order 
of birth not always being observed in enumerations, the reply is, 
that, enumeration in that order, is the rule, in any other order the ex- 
ception. Besides, if a younger member of a family, takes precedence 
of older ones in the family record, it is a mark of pre-eminence, 
either in endowments, or providential instrumentality. Abraham, 
though sixty years younger than his eldest brother, stands first in the 
family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history shows him pre-emi- 
nent ; besides, the Hebrew word Hdkkatdn rendered " the younger^'' 
means the little, small. The same word is used in Isa. xl. 22. " A 
I.ITTLE ONE shall hecomc a thousand.''^ Isa. xxii. 24. " All vessels of 
SMALL quantity.'^ Ps. cxv, 13. ''He will bless them that fear the 
Lord both sj>i ALL and great. '^ Ex. xviii. 22. '' But every small mat* 
ter they shall judge. ''^ It would be a literal rendering of Gen. ix. 24, 
if it were translated thus, " when Noah knew what his little son,* or 
grandson (Beno hdkkatan) had done unto him, he said cursed be Ca^ 
naan," &c. Further, even if the Africans were the descendants of 
Canaan, the assumption that their enslavement fulfils this prophecy, 
lacks even plausibility, for, only a fraction of the Africans have at 
any time been the slaves of other nations. If the objector say in 
reply, that a large majority of the Africans have always been slaves 
at home, we answer : It is false in point of fact, though zealously 
bruited often to serve a turn ; and if it were true, how does it help the 
argument ? The prophecy was, " Cursed be Canaan, a servant of 
servants shall he be unto his brethren," not unto himself ! 

Objection II. — " If a man smite his servant or his maid with a 
rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Not- 
withstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, 
for he is his money." Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of 
this regulation? Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat ser- 
vants with impunity, and an assurance, that if they beat them to 
death, the offence should not be capital? This is substantially 
what commentators tell us. What Deity do such men worship ? 
Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and 
snuffing carnage for incense ? Did He who thundered from Sinai's 



* The French follows the same analogy; grandson being petit Jk (little son.) 



49 

flames, " Thou shalt not kill," offer a bounty on murder ? Who- 
ever analyzes the Mosaic system, will find a moot court in session, 
trying law points — settling definitions, or laying down rules of evi- 
dence, in almost every chapter. Num. xxxv. 10 — 22; Deut. xi. 11, 
and xix. 4 — 6 ; Lev. xxiv^. 19 — 22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are a few, out of 
many cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect 
the intent, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judi- 
cial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions neces- 
sary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to 
enable them to get at the motive and find out whether the master de- 
signed to kill. (1.) "If a man smite his servant with a rod."" — The 
instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Num. xxxv. 16, 18. 
A rodj not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death- 
weapon — hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill 
would be inferred ; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod 
for its weapon. But if the servant die under his hand, then the unfit- 
ness of the instrument, is point blank against him ; for, to strike him 
with a rod until he dies, argues a great many blows and great violence, 
and this kept up to the death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence 
" He shall surely be punished." But if he continued a day or two, 
the length of time that he lived, together with the kind of instrument 
used, and tlie master's pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his 
money, ^^) all made a strong case of circumstantial evidence, showing 
that the master did not design to kill. Further, the word nakclm, 
here rendered punished, is not so rendered in another instance. Yet it 
occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every 
place is translated " avenge^'' in a few, " to take vengeance^'' or " to re- 
venge^'' and in this instance alone, ^'"punishP As it stands in our 
translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master, whereas it 
should refer to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should 
have been rendered avensed. The meaning is this : If a man smite 
his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, it (the 
death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, hy avenging it shall he 
avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death 
of the master. So in the next verse, " If he continue a day or two," 
his death is not to be avenged by the death of the master, as in that 
case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In 
the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for 
which the injurer is to pay a sum of money ; and yet our translators 



50 

employ tlie same phraseology in both places. One, an instance of 
deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal. The other, an accidental, 
and comparatively slight injury — of the inflicter, in both cases, they 
say the same thing! "He shall surely be punished." Now, just the 
discrimination to be looked for where God legislates, is marked in 
the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says, 
" It (the death) shall surely be avenged^'' that is, the lil'e of the wrong 
doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old 
Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the 
perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, 
in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely he fined, [Aunash.) 
" He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of 
the word dndsh, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut.xxii. J 9: "They 
shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3 : 
" He condemned {mulcted) the land in a hundred talents of gold." 
That avenging the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, 
nor stripes, nor a fine, but that it was taking the master^s life we infer, 
(1.) From the use of the word ndkdm. See Gen. iv. 24 ; Josh. x. 13 ; 
Judg. xiv. 7 ; xvi. 28 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 24 ; xviii. 25 ; xxv. 31 ; 2 Sam. 
iv. 8; Judg, V. 2; 1 Sam. xxv. 26 — 33. (2.) From the express statute. 
Lev. xxv. 17 : "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death." 
Also, Num. XXXV. 30, 31 : " Whoso killeth any person, the murderer 
shall be put to death. Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction for 
the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be 
put to death." (3.) The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, 
" Death by the sword shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of 
Jerusalem, " Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost^'' 
Jarchi, the same. The Samaritan version: "He shall die the death." 
Again, the clause " for he is his money," is quoted to prove that the 
servant is his master's property, and therefore, if he died, the master 
was not to be punished. The assumption is, that the phrase, "he is 
HIS MONEY," proves not only that the servant is worth money to the 
master, but that he is an article of property . If the advocates of sla- 
very insist upon taking this principle of interpretation into the Bible, 
and turning it loose, let them stand and draw in self-defence. If they 
endorse for it at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the 
circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears 
the table, and tilts them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible 
abounds with such expressions as the following: " This (bread) i.s my 



51 

body ;" "this (wine) is my blood ; "all they (the Israelites) are brass 
and tin ;" " this (water) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy 
of their lives ;" " the Lord God is a sun and a shield ;" " God is love ;" 
"the seven good ears are seven years, and the seven good kine are 
seven years;" "the tree of the field is man's life ;" " God is a con- 
suming fire ;" " he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact liter' 
alities of the Bible is so amiable, it were hard not to gratify it in 
this case. The words in the original are (Kdspo-hu,) " his silver 
is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is a philoso- 
pher's stone ! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches 
of flesh and bones into solid silver! Quite a permanent servant, 
if not so nimble with all — reasoning against ^^forever" is fore- 
stalled henceforth, and, Deut. xxiii. 15, utterly outwitted. The ob- 
vious meaning of the phrase, " He is his money, ^^ is, he is worth 
money to his master, and since, if the master had killed him, it 
would have taken money out of his pocket, the pecuniary loss, the 
kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living some time after the 
injury, (if the master meant to kill, he would be likely to do it while 
about it,) all together make a strong case of presumptive evidence 
clearing the master of intent to kill. But let us look at the objector's 
inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his property 
as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Wheth- 
er the servant died under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he 
was equally his property, and the objector admits that in ihef7'st case 
the master is to be " surely punished" for destroying his own property ! 
The other inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, 
cleared the master of inte?it to kill, the loss of the slave would be a 
sufficient punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. 
This inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A 
pecuniary loss was no part of the legal claim, where a person took 
the life of another^ In such case, the law spurned money, whatever 
the sum. God would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with 
such a weight. " Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a 
murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." Num.xxxv. 31. Even 
in excusable homicide, where an axe slipped from the helve and kil- 
led a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in 
the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Numb. xxxv. 
32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a penalty 
adequate to the desert of the master, admits his guilt and his desert 



52 

of some punishment, and it prescribes a kind of punishment, rejectedl 
by the law, in all cases where man took the life of man, whether 
with or without intent to kill. In short, the objector annuls an inte^ 
gral part of the system — makes a new law, and cooly metes out such 
penalty as he thinks fit. Divine legislation revised and improved ! 
The master who struck out his servant's tooth, whether intention^ 
ally or not, was required to set him free. The pecuniary loss to the 
master was the same as though he had killed him. Look at the two 
cases. A master beats his servant so that he dies of his wounds ; 
another accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth, — the lyecuniary loss 
of both masters is the same. If the loss of the slave's services is 
punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him, would God com- 
mand the same punishment for the accidental knocking out of a tooth? 
Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertently, the loss of the ser- 
vant's services was only a part of the punishment — mere reparation 
to the individual for injury done ; the main punishment, that strictly 
judicial, was reparation to the community. To set the servant free, 
and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of 
it — answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an ex- 
ample of the oflender, that " those that remain might hear and fear." 
" If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so shall 
it be done unto him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. 
Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for 
one of your own country." Lev xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a mas- 
ter smote out his servant's tooth the law smote out his tooth — thus re- 
dressing the public wrong ; and it cancelled the servant's obligation 
to the master, thus giving some compensation for the injury done-, 
and exempting him from perilous liabilities in future. 

Objection III. " Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thoil 
shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you, of them 
shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of 
the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and 
of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, 
and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an 
inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a posses- 
sion; they shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. xxv. 44 — 46. 

The points in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic sys- 
tem sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "Bondmen." 2. "Buy.'" 
3. "Inheritance and possession." 4. "Forever." 



53 

The buying of servants was discussed, pp. 1 7 — 22, and holding 
them as a " possession," pp. 37 — 46. We will now ascertain what 
sanctioiv to slavery is derivable from the terms " bondmen," " inheri- 
tance," and "forever." 

1. "BOiVDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called 
" hondmen^'' while others are called " servants^'' is quoted as proof 
that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' trans- 
lators were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. 
The word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants 
elsewhere. The Hebrew word " ehedh,^^ the plural of which is here 
translated " hondmen^' is in Isa. xlii. 1, applied to Christ. " Behold 
my servant (bondman, slave ?) whom I have chosen." So Isa. lii. 
13. " Behold my servant (Christ) shall deal prudently." In 1 Kings 
xii. 6, 7, to King Rehoboam. " And they spake unto him, saying if 
thou wilt be a servant unto this people, then they will be thy ser- 
vants forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the 
nation. In fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service for 
others — to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to tributaries, to 
all the subjects of governments, to younger sons — defining their rela- 
tion to the first born, who is called Lord and ruler — to prophets, to 
kings, to the Messiah, and in respectful addresses not less than fifty 
times in the Old Testament. 

If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if 
Abraham had thousands and if they abounded under the Mosaic sys- 
tem, why had their language no word that meant slave ? That lan- 
guage must be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to repre- 
sent the most common and familiar objects and conditions. To re- 
present by tlie same word, and without figure, property, and the 
owner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an " ebcdh^'' yet he 
" owned'''' (!) twenty ebedhs ! In our language, we have both servant 
and slave. Why ? Because we have both the tilings and need signs 
for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we 
should have some name for it : but our dictionaries give us none. 
Why ? Because there is no such thijig. But the objector asks, 
" Would not the Israelites use their word cbedh if they spoke of the 
slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their national servants or tributa- 
ries, are spoken of frequently, but domestic servants so rarely that 
no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new 
word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under heathen laws 
8 



64 

and usages, proclaimed their liabilities ; their locality made a specific 
term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had not only servants, but a 
multitude of slaves, a word meaning slave, would have been indispen- 
sable for every day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic 
system were so many sentinels on the outposts to warn off foreign 
practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, 
enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages between the without 
and the within. 

2. " Forever." This is quoted to prove that servants were to 
serve during their life time, and their posterity from generation to 
generation. No such idea is contained in the passage. The word 
" forever," instead of defining the length of individual service, pro- 
claims the permanence of the regulation laid down in the two verses 
preceding, namely, that their permanent domestics should be of the 
Strangers, and not of the Israelites ; it declares the duration of that 
general provision. As if God had said, " You shall always get your 
permanent laborers from the nations round about you — your servants 
shall always be of that class of persons." As it stands in the origi- 
nal, it is plain — " Forever of them shall ye serve yourselves^ This is 
the literal rendering. 

That ^'•forever''' refers to the permanent relations of a community, 
rather than to the services of individuals, is a fair inference from the 
form of the expression, " Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the heathen. 
Or TPiEM shall ye buy," &c. "They shall be your possession." To 
say nothing of the uncertainty of these individuals surviving those 
after whom they are to live, the language used, applies more natu- 
rally to a body of people, than to individual servants. Besides per- 
petual service cannot be argued from the iexm forever. The ninth 
and tenth verses of the same chapter, limit it absolutely by the jubi- 
lee. " Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound 
* * throughout all your land." " And ye shall proclaim liberty 
thoughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." It may be 
objected that ''inhabitants" here means Israclitish inhabitants alone. 
The command is, " Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all 
the inhabitants thereof^ Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an 
enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in which ser- 
vants and Strangers are included ; and in all the regulations of the 
jubilee, and the sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the pre- 
cepts, prohibitions, and promises. Again : the year of jubilee was 



65 

ushered in, by the day of atonement. What did these institutions 
show forth ? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of 
Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they 
prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only 1 Were they types 
of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel 
alone ? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the 
earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety ? Did that old parti- 
tion wall survive the shock, that made earth quake, and hid the sun, 
burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil ? and did the Gospel 
only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning bat- 
tlements on all without ? No ! The God of our salvation lives. 
" Good tidings of great joy shall be to all people." One shout shall 
swell from all the ransomed, " Thou hast redeemed us unto God by 
thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." 
To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants 
from the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism. It not only eclipses 
the glory of the Gospel, but strikes out the sun. The refusal to re- 
lease servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading 
type of the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's re- 
demption. Finally, even ii forever did refer to individual service, we 
have ample precedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same 
word defines the length of time which Jewish servants served who 
did not go out in the seventh year. And all admit that they went out 
at the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2 — 6 ; Deut. xv. 12—17. The 23d verse of 
the same chapter is quoted to prove that "/orei'er" in the 46th verse, 
extends beyond the jubilee. " The land shall not be sold forever, 
for the land is mine" — since it would hardly be used in diflierent 
senses in the same general connection. As forever, in the 46th 
verse, respects the general arrangement, and not individual service the 
objection does not touch the argument. Besides in the 46th verse, 
the word used, is Olcim, meaning throughout the period, whatever that 
may be. Whereas in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth, meaning, a cut- 
ting off. 

3. "Inheritance AND POSSESSION." " Ye shall take them as an 
INHERITANCE for your children after you to inherit them for a posses- 
sion." This refers to the nations, and not to the individual servants, 
procured from these nations. We have already shown, that servants 
could not be held as a property-possession, and inheritance ; that they 
became servants of their own accord, and were paid wages ; that they 



66 

Were released by law from their regular labor nearly half the days in 
each year, and thoroughly instructed ; that the servants were protected 
in all their personal, social, and religious rights, equally with their 
masters, &c. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would 
be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre ; a 
profitable " possession" and " inheritance," truly ! What if our 
American slaves were all placed in just such a condition f Alas, for 
that soft, melodious circumlocution, "Our peculiar species of pro- 
perty!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony 
meet together ! What eager snatches at mere words, and bald tech- 
nics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible 
usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages — and all to eke 
out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making God 
pander for lust. The words nahal and nahala, inherit and inheri- 
tance, by no means necessarily signify articles of property. " The 
people answered the king and said, we have none inheritance in 
the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean gravely to dis- 
claim the holding of their king as an article q{ property ? " Children 
are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps. cxxvii. 3. " Pardon 
our iniquity, and take us for thine inheritance.''^ Ex. xxxiv. 9. When 
God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make 
them articles of property ? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, sy- 
nonymes ? " Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage" (hiheri- 
tance.) Ps. cxix. 111. "/ am their inheritance.''^ Ezek. xliv. 28. 
" I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.'" Ps. ii. 8. " For 
the Lord will not cast ofi' his people, neither will he forsake his 
inheritance.^^ Ps. xciv. 14. See also Deut. iv. 20 ; Josh. xiii. 
33 ; Ps. Ixxxii. 8 ; Ixxviii. 62, 71 ; Prov. xiv. 8. The question 
whether the servants were a vroveuty -^^ possession,^^ has been 
already discussed — pp. 37-46 — we need add in this place but a 
word, clhuzzd rendered '^possession." " And Joseph placed his fa- 
ther and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of 
Egypt." Gen. xlii. 11. In what sense was Goshen the possession 
of the Israelites ? Answer, in the sense of having it to live in. In 
what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take 
them as an inheritance for their children ? Answer, they possessed 
them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household ser- 
vants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to poster- 
ity as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a de- 



scent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be 
given thus : "Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall 
be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye get male 
and female domestics." " Moreover of the children of the foreign- 
ers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye get, and of their fam- 
ilies that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall 
be your permanent resource." " And ye shall take them as b. perpet- 
ual provision for your children after you, to hold as a constant source 
of supply. Always of them shall ye serve yourselves." The de- 
sign of the passage is manifest from its structure. It was to point 
out the class of persons from which they were to get their supply of 
servants, and the ivay in which they were to get them. 

Objection IV. "If thy brother that dv»^elleth by thee be waxen 
poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a 
BOND-SERVANT, but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall 
he be w^ith thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee." 
LcT. XXV. 39, 40. 

As only one class is called ^^hired,^^ it is inferred that servants of 
the other class v/ere not paid for their labor. That God, while thun- 
dering anathemas against those who "used their neighbor's service 
without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people 
to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, 
in selecting their victims, they spared "the gentlemen of property 
and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common 
people. The inference that " hired " is synonymous with paid, and 
that those servants not called "hired" were not paid for their la,bor, is 
a mere assumption. The meaning of the English verb to hire, is to 
procure for a temporary use at a certain price — to engage a person to 
temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the He- 
brew word '■''sauharr It is not used when the procurement of per- 
manent service is spoken of. Now, we ask, would permanent 
servants, those who constituted a stationary part of the family, 
have been designated by the same term that marks temporary ser- 
vants ? The every-day distinction on this subject, are familiar 
as table-talk. In many families the domestics perform only the reg- 
ular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a 
family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. The fa- 
miliar distinction between the two classes, is " servants," and " hi- 
red help," (not paid help.) Both classes are paid. One is perma- 



58 

nent, the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case 
called " hired.'"* A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing 
hired from bought servants. (1.) Hired servants were paid daily at 
the close of their work. Lev. xix 13 ; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15 ; Job. vii. 
2 ; Matt. xx. 8. " Bought "servants were paid in advance, (a reason 
for their being called bought,) and those that went out at the seventh 
year received d^ gratuity. Deut. xv. 12, 13. (2.) The "hired" 
were paid in money, the " bought" received their gratuity, at least, in 
grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Deut. xiv. 17. (3.) 
The " hired " lived in their own families, the " bought " were a part 
of their masters' families. (1) The " hired" supported their fami- 
lies out of their wages ; the " bought" and their families were sup- 
ported by the master besides their wages. The " bought " servants, 
were, as a class, superior to the hired — were more trust-worthy, had 
greater privileges, and occupied a higher station in society. (1.) 
They were intimately incorporated with the family of the masters, 
were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which 
hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10 ; Ex. xii. 43, 45. (2.) 
Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters* 
family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their 
mastres' estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of 
Bilhah, and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were 
unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We 
find traces of this usage in the New Testament. " But when the 
husband-men saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, this 
is the heir, come let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." 
Luke XX. 14. In no instance does a hired servant inherit his mas- 
ter's estate. (3.) Marriages took place between servants and their 
master's daughters. Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose 

* To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a hired ser- 
vant, is profound induction ! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work 
my farm, he is my "Aired" man, but if I give him such a portion of the crop, or in 
other words, if he works my farm " on shares," every farmer knows that he is no 
longer called my ^'hirecV' man. Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at 
the same times, and with the same teams and tools ; and does the same amount of 
work in the year, and perhaps clears tw^enty dollars a month, instead of twelve. 
Now as he is no longer called "hired," and as he still works my farm, suppose my 
neighbors sagely infer, that since he is not my "Aired" laborer, I rob him of 
his earnings, and with all the gravity of owls, pronounce the oracular decision, and 
hoot it abroad. My neighbors afe deep divers!— Uke some theological professora, 
they not only go to the bottom but come tip covered with the tokens. 



50 

name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his ser- 
vant to wife. 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. There is no instance of a hired 
servant forming such an alliance. (4.) Bought servants and their 
descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the 
other members of the family.* The treatment of Abraham's servants, 
Gen. XXV. — the intercourse between Gideon and his servant, Judg. 
vii. 10, 11 ; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. ix. 5, 22 ; Jonathan and 
his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1 — 14, and Elisha and his servant, are illus- 
trations. No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants 
and their masters. Their untrustworthiness was proverbial. John 
ix. 12, 13. None but the lowest class engaged as hired servants, and 
the kinds of labor assigned to them required little knowledge and 
skill. Various passages show the low repute and trifling character 
of the class from which they were hired. Judg. ix. 4 ; 1 Sam. ii. 5. 
The superior condition of bought servants is manifest in the high 
trusts confided to them, and in their dignity and authority in the 
household. In no instance is a hired servant thus distinguished. 
The bought servant is manifestly the master's representative in the 
family — with plenipotentiary powers over adult children, even nego- 
tiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant, not to take 
a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The servant 
himself selected the individual. Servants also exercised discretionary 
power in the management of their masters' estates, "And the servant 
took ten camels of the camels of his master,ybr«Z/ the goods of his master 
were under his hand^ Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned for ta- 
king them, is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the ser- 
vant had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary poM'-- 
er in the disposal of property. See Gen. xxiv. 22, 23, 53. The con- 
dition of Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So 
is Prov. xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in 
the New Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45 ; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the 
parable of the talents ; the master seems to have set up each of his 
servants in trade with a large capital. The unjust steward had large 

* " For the purchased servant who is an Israelite, or proselyte, shall fare as his 
master. The master shall not eat fine bread, and his servant .bread of bran. Nor 
yet drink old wine, and give his servant new ; nor sleep on soft pillows, and bedding, 
and his servant on straw. I say unto you, that he that gets a 'purchased servant 
does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as if he got 
himself a master." — Maimonides, inMishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1, Sec. 2, 



60 

discretionary power, was " accused of wasting his master's goods," 
and manifestly regulated with his debtors, the terms of settlement. 
Luke xvi. 4. 8. Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants. 

The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the par- 
able of the prodigal son. When the prodigal, perishing with hun- 
ger among the swine and husks, came to himself, his proud heart 
broke ; " I will arise," he cried, " and go to my father." And then 
to assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add, 
" Make me as one of thy hired servants." If hired servants were 
the superior class — to apply for the situation, savored little of that 
sense of unworthinesss that seeks the dust with hidden face, and 
cries " vmclean." Unhumbled nature climbs ; or if it falls, clings 
fast, where first it may. Humility sinks of its own weight, and in 
the lowest deep, digs lower. The design of the parable was to il- 
lustrate on the one hand, the joy of God, as he beholds afar off, the 
returning sinner " seeking an injured father's face " who runs to clasp 
and bless him with an unchiding welcome ; and on the other, the 
contrition of the penitent, turning homeward with tears from his 
wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with its ill-desert he sobs 
aloud, " The lowest place, the loicest place, I can abide no other." 
Or in those inimitable words, "Father I have sinned against Heaven, 
and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make 
me as one of thy hired servants." The supposition that hired ser- 
vants v/ere the highest class, takes from the parable an element of 
winning beauty and pathos. It is manifest to every careful student 
of the Bible, that one class of servants, was on terms of equality 
with the children and other members of the family. (Hence the 
force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, " Now I say unto you, that 
the heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a ser- 
vant, though he be lord of all.") If this were the hired class, the 
prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would our Lord have 
put such language upon the lips of one held up by himself, as a 
model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of all ill-desert ? 
If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, Avhile pride 
takes lessons, and blunders in apeing it. 

Israelites and Strangers, belonged indiscriminately to each class 
of the servants, the bought and the hired. That those in the former 
class, whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the 
family circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been 



61 

shown. It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of priv- 
ileges, merely political, the hired servants from the Israelites, were 
more favored than even the bouiiht servants from the Strangers. No 
one from the Strangers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eli- 
gible to the highest office, nor could he own the soil. This last disa- 
bility seems to have been one reason for the different periods of ser- 
vice required of the two classes of bought servants — the Israelites and 
the Strangers. The Israelite was to serve six years — the Stranger 
until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the soil, nor even 
houses, except within walled towns, most would attach themselves 
to Israelitish families. Those who were wealthy, or skilled in manu- 
factures, instead of becoming servants would need servants for their 
own use, and as inducements for the Stranger's to become servants to 
the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own nation could hold 
out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally procure the poor- 
er Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a word, such was the 
political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity offered a 
virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus 
secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in 
the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek, xlvii. 21 — 23. 
None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. 
On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheri- 
tance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incum- 
brance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor 
and personal character. 1 Kings xxi. 3.. Hence, to forego the con- 
trol of one's inheritance, after the division of the paternal domain, or to 
be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a burden grievous to 
be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a calamity, the law 
released the Israelitish servant at the end of six years ;* as, during 
that time — if of the first class — the partition of the patrimonial land 
might have taken place ; or, if of the second, enough money might 
have been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he might as- 
sume his station as a lord of the soil. If neither contingency had 

* Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to have 
been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jewish economy. 
Its pecuniary responsibiiitits, social relalions, and general internal structure, were 
graduated upon a septennial scale. Besides as those Israelites who became servants 
through pDverty, would not sell themselves, till other expedients tore'^ruit their finan- 
ces had filled — (Lev. xxv. 35) — iheir becoming servants proclaimed suth a state 
of their affairs, as demanded the labor of a course of years fully to reinstate them. 
9 



62 

occurred, then after another six years the opportunity was again offer- 
ed, and so on, until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged the 
Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had 
passed which made him a servant, every consideration impelled the 
Stranger io prolong his term of service ; and the same kindness which 
dictated the law of six years' service for the Israelite, assigned as 
the general rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who 
had every inducement to protract the term. It should be borne in 
mind, that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, only as a tem- 
porary expedient to relieve themselves from embarrassment, and 
ceased to be such when that object was effected. The poverty that 
forced them to it was a calamity, and their service was either a means 
of relief, or a measure of prevention ; not pursued as a permanent 
business, but resorted to on emergencies — a sort of episode in the 
main scope of their lives. Whereas with the Strangers, it was aperma- 
nent employment, pursued both as a means of bettering their own condi- 
tion, and that of their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring 
on them privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable. 
We see from the foregoing, why servants purchased from the 
heathen, are called by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen,) 
(1.) They followed it as a permanent business. (2.) Their term of 
service was much longer than that of the other class. (3.) As a 
class, they doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israelitish servants. 
(4.) All the Strangers that dwelt in the land were tributaries, required 
to pay an annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public 
service, (called a " tribute of bond-service ;") in other words, all the 
Strangers were national servants, to the Israedites, and the same 
Hebrew word used to designate individual servants, equally desig- 
nates national servants or tributaries. 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, 14. 2 Chron. 
viii. 7— 9. Deut. xx. 11. 2 Sam. x. 19. 1 Kings ix. 21, 22. 1 
Kings iv. 21. Gen. xxvii. 29. The same word is applied to the Is- 
raelites, when they paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. 3. 
Judg. iii. 8, 14. Gen. xlix. 15. Another distinction between the 
Jewish and Gentile bought servants, was in their kinds of service. 
The servants from the Strangers were properly the domestics, or 
household servants, employed in all family work, in offices of per- 
sonal attendance, and in such mechanical labor, as was required by 
increasing wants, and needetJ repairs. The Jewish bought servants 
seem almost exclusively agricultural. Besides being better fitted for 



63 

it by previous habits — agriculture, and the tending of cattle, were re- 
garded by the Israelites as the most honorable of all occupations. 
After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah, the next report 
of him is, " And behold Saul came after the herd out of the field.'''' 
1 Sam. xi. 7. Elisha " was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen." 
1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah " loved husbandry." 2 Chron. xxvi. 
10. Gideon was ^Hhreshing wheat^^ when called to lead the host against 
the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11. The superior honorableness of agri- 
culture, is shown, in that it was protected and supported by the fun- 
damental law of the theocracy — God indicating it as the chief prop 
of the government. The Israelites were like permanent fixtures on 
their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agriculturalists on their own 
inheritances, was with them the grand claim to honorable estimation. 
Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to assign a 
native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to break up 
his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him to a 
kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed de- 
grading. In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system, 
practically to unjew him, a hardship and rigor grievous to be borne, 
as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of 
Abraham and the Strangers. — -To guard this and another fundamental 
distinction, God instituted the regulation which stands at the head of 
this branch of our inquiry, " If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be 
waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve 
as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to ser- 
vant's work — to the business, and into the condition of domestics. 
In the Persian version it is translated thus, " Thou shalt not assign 
to him the work of servitude" In the Septuagint, " He shall not 
serve thee with the service of a domestic. In the Syriac, *' Thou 
shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Sa- 
maritan, " Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a 
servant." In the Targum of Onkelos, " He shall not serve thee with 
the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan, 
" Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the 
servitude of servants."* The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt 

♦Jarchi's comment on "Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant" 
is, " The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any tlang which is accounted de- 
grading — such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his master's shoe- 
latchet, bringing him water to wash his feet and hands, waiting on him at table, 
dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The Hebrew servant is to work 
with his master as a son or brother, in the business of his farm, or other labor, until 
his legal release." 



64 

not assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service, 
with permanent domestics. The remainder of the regulation is, — 
" But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with theeT 
Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their mas- 
ters ; they still retained their own family organization, without the 
surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority ; and this 
even though they resided under the same roof with their master- 
While bought servants were associated with their master's families at 
meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants 
and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44,45 ; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Hired 
servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any such 
sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence 
the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scrip- 
tures as practicable to masters, is that of keeping hack their wages. 
To have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration, 
would have been pre-eminent ^^rigor;'''' for it was not a servant born in 
the house of a master, nor a minor, whose minority had been sold by 
the father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheri- 
tance ; nor finally, one who had received the assignment of his in- 
heritance, but was working off from it an incumbrance, before enter- 
ing upon its possession and control. But it was that of the head of a 
family, who had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced 
to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the compe- 
tence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and 
to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment. 
So sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy ; but one consolation 
cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage ; he is an Israelite — Abra- 
ham is his father, and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever, 
to the distinction conferred by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were 
.«' the unkindest cut of all." To have assigned him to a grade of ser- 
vice filled only by those whose permanent business was serving, 
would have been to "rule over him with" peculiar "rigor." "Thou shalt 
not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or literally, thou shalt not 
serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties 
his political privileges, and a kind and grade of service, comporting 
with his character and relations as an Israelite. And " as a hired ser- 
vant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," secures to him his 
family organization, the respect and authority due to its head, and the 
general consideration resulting from such a station. Being already 
in possesion of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law 



65 

so arranged the conditions of his service as to alleviate as much as 
possible the calamity, which had reduced him from independence and 
authority, to penury and subjection. The import of the command 
which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, (" Thou shalt not 
rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not disregard 
those differences in previous associations, station, authority, and 
political privileges, upon which this regulation is based ; for to hold 
this class of servants irrespective oi ihese distinctions, and annihilating 
them, is to " rule with rigor." The same command is repeated in the 
forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between servants of 
Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking 
of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the disregard of which would be 
riororous in the extreme.* The construction commonly put upon the 
phrase " rule with rigor," and the inference drawn from it, have an air 
vastly oracular. It is interpreted to mean, " you shall not make him 
a chattel, and strip him of legal protection, nor force him to work 
without pay." The inference is like unto it, viz., since the com- 
mand forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and com- 
missioned their infliction upon the Strangers. Such impious and 
shallow smattering captivates scoffers and libertines; its flippancy and 
blasphemy, and the strong scent of its loose-reined license works 
like a charm upon them. What boots it to reason against such ram- 
pant affinities ! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that the Egyptians "made the 
children of Israel to serve with rigor." This rigor is affirmed of the 
amount of labor extorted and the mode of the exaction. The expres- 
sion, " serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants 
under the Mosaic system. The phrase, " thou shah not rule over 
him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor, 
nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise. 
But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a 
Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service, for 
the same term of time, and under the same political disabilities as 
the latter. 

We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the 

* The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions, based on a different 
national descent, and imporrant to the preservation of nat onal characteristics, and a 
national worship, did not at all affect \he\r social esiimation. They were regarded 
-according to their characfr, and worth as persons, irrespective of their foreign origin, 
employments, and political condition. 



66 

different classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each 
class. In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of 
servants were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by- 
law in their persons, character, property and social relations ; all 
were voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released 
from it neaily one half of the days in each year ; all were furnished 
with stated instruction ; none in either class were in any sense arti- 
cles of property, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, 
hopes and destinies of men. In all these respects, all classes of ser- 
vants among the Israelites, formed but one class. The different 
classes, and the differences in each class, were, (1.) Hired Servants. 
This class consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their em- 
ployments were different. The Israelite was an agricultural servant. 
The Stranger was a domestic and personal servant, and in some in- 
stances mechanical ; both were occasional and temporary. Both 
lived in their own families, their wages were money, and they were 
paid when their work was done. (2.) Bought Servants, (including 
those " born in the house.") This class also, consisted of Israelites 
and Strangers, the same difference in their kinds of employ- 
ment as noticed before. Both were paid in advance,* and neither 
was temporary. The Israelitish servant, with the exception of the 
freeholder, was released after six years. The Stranger was a perma- 
nent servant, continuing until the jubilee. A marked distinction ob- 
tained also between different classes of Jewish bought servants. Or- 
dinarily, they were merged in their master's family, and, like his 
wife and children, subject to his authority ; (and, like them, protect- 
ed by law from its abuse.) But the freeholder was a marked excep- 
tion ; his family relations, and authority remained unaffected, nor 
was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though 
dependent upon him for employment. 



* The payment in advance, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase ; the 
■servant thus having the use of the money, and the master assuming all the risks of 
life, and health for labor ; at the expiration of the six year's contract, the master hav- 
ing suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was obliged by law to 
•release the servant with a liberal gratuity. The reason assigned for this is, " he hath 
l)een worth a double hired servant unto thee in serving thee six years," as if it had 
been said, as you have experienced no loss from the risks of life, and ability to labor, 
■incurred in the purchase, and which lessened the price, and as, by being your servant 
for six years, he has saved you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers 
on emergencies, therefore, "thoushalt furnish him liberally," &c. 



6^ 

It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Is- 
raelite and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal natural and religious 
rights, but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of 
their own people who were not servants. They also shared in com- 
mon with them the political disabilities which appertained to all Stran- 
gers, whether the servants of Jewish masters, or the masters of Jew- 
ish servants. Further, the disabilities of the servants from the Stran- 
gers were exclusively political and national. (1.) They, in common 
with ail Strangers, could not own the soil. (2.) They were ineligi- 
ble to civil offices. (3.) They were assigned to employments less 
honorable than those in which Israelitish servants engaged ; agri- 
culture beinff regfarded as fundamental to the existence of the state, 
other employments were in less repute, and deemed unjewish. 

Finally, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all 
protected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to 
political privileges, their condition was much like that of unnatural- 
ized foreigners in the United States ; whatever their wealth or intel- 
ligence, or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither 
go to the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let 
a native American, be suddenly bereft of these privileges, and load- 
ed with the disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would 
be a light matter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The re- 
cent condition of the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illus- 
tration. Rothschild, the late banker, though the richest private citi- 
zen in the world, and perhaps master of scores of English servants, 
who sued for the smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of 
the government, inferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an 
Englishman of the Established Church, were by law deprived of 
power to own the soil, of eligibility to office and of the electoral fran- 
chise, would Englishmen think it a misapplication of language, if it 
were said, the government " rules over him with rigor ?" And yet 
his person, property, reputation, conscience, all his social relations, 
the disposal of his time, the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of 
natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as 
the Lord Chancellor's. 

Finally, — As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, 
rife with meaning in doctrine and duty ; the practical power of the 
whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and 
relations which constituted its signihcancy. Hence, the care to pre- 



6S 

serve inviolate the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and 
a Stranger, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone 
through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and be- 
come incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance. The regu- 
lation laid down in Ex. xxi. 2 — 6, is an illustration. In this case, the 
Israelitish servant, whoso term expired in six years, married one of 
his master's permanent female domestics; but her marriage, did not 
release her master from his part of the contract for her whole term of 
service, nor from his legal obligation to support and educate her 
children. Neither did it do away that distinction, which marked her 
national descent by a specific grade and term of service, nor impair 
her obligation to fulfill her part of the contract. Her relations as a; 
permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care 
throughout the Mosaic system. To render it void, would have been 
to divide the system against itself. This God v/ould not tolerate. 
Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master, to throw off the 
responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of 
their helpless infancy and rearing. He was bomid to support and 
educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of 
service. The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and 
tender regard for the interests of all the parties concerned, which 
arrays the Mosaic system in robes of glory, and causes it to shine as 
the sun in the kingdom of our Father. By this law, the children had 
secured to them a mother's tender care. If the husband loved his 
wife and children, he could compel his master to keep him, whether 
he had any occasion for his services or not. If he did not love them, 
to be rid of him was a blessing ; and in that case, the regulation 
would prove an act for the relief of an afflicted family. It is not by 
any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant in the 
seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of mar- 
riage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could 
doubtless procure a service at no great distance from them, and might 
often do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suit- 
ed to his taste and skill. The great number of days on which the 
law released servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend 
much more time with his family, than can be spent by most of the 
agents of our benevolent societies with their families, or by many- 
merchants, editors, artists, &c., whose daily business is in New York, 
while their families reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country. 



69 

We conclude this Inquiry by touching briefly upon an objection, 
which, though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the 
whole tenor of the foregoing argument. It is this, — " The slavery 
of the Canaanites by the Israelites, was. appointed by God as a com- 
mutation of the punishment of death denounced against them for their 
sins." If the absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, 
and at the same time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh 
at itlelf, it would be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make 
up the deficiency by a general contribution. For, he it remembered^ 
only one statute was ever given respectmg the disposition to be made 
of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence of death was pro- 
nounced against them, and afterwards commuted, when ? where ? by 
whom ? and in what terms was the commutation, and where is it 
recorded ? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the Canaanites were 
sentenced to unconditional extermination ; as there was no reversal 
of the sentence, how can a right to enslave them, be drawn from such 
premises ? The punishment of death is one of the highest recognitions 
of man's moral nature possible. It proclaims him man — rational, ac- 
countable, guilty, deserving deathfor having done his utmost to cheapen 
human life, when the proof of its priceless worth lived in his own 
nature. But to make him a slave, cheapens to nothing universal hu- 
man nature, and instead of healing a wound, gives a death-stab. 
What ! repair an injury to rational being in the robbery of one of its 
rights, by robbing it of all, and annihilating their foundation — the 
everlasting distinction between persons and things ? To make a 
man a chattel, is not the punishment, but the annihilation of a human 
being, and, so far as it goes, of all human beings. This commuta- 
tion of the punishment of death, into perpetual slavery, what a fortu- 
nate discovery ! Alas ! for the honor of Deity, if commentators had 
not manned the forlorn hope, and by a timely movement rescued the 
Divine character, at the very crisis of its fate, from the perilous posi- 
tion in which inspiration had carelessly left it ! Here a question arises 
of sufficient importance for a separate dissertation ; but must for the 
present be disposed of in a few paragraphs. Were the Canaanites 

SENTENCED BY GoD TO INDIVIDUAL AND UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMI- 
NATION ? As the limits of this inquiry forbid our giving all the 
grounds of dissent from commonly received opinions, the suggestions 
, made, will be thrown out merely as queries, rather than laid down 
as doctrines. The directions as to the disposal of the Canaanites, 
10 



70 

are mainly in the following passages, Ex. xxiii. 23 — 33 ; xxxiv. 11 
Deut. vii. 16 — 25; ix. 3 ; xxxi. 3 — 5. In these verses, the Israel* 
ites are commanded to " destroy the Canaanites" '' drive out," " con- 
sume." *' utterly overthrow," "put out," " dispossess them," &c. Did 
these commands enjoin the unconditional and universal destruction 
of the individuals, or merely of the body politic ? The word hdrdnif 
to destroy, signifies national, as well as individual destruction ; the 
destruction of political existence, equally with personal ; of govern- 
mental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects. Besides, 
if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c., to mean 
personal destruction, what meaning shall we give to the expressions, 
" drive out before thee ;" " cast out before thee ;" " expel," " put out,'' 
" dispossess," &c., which are used in the same passages ? " I will 
destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all 
thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." Ex. xxiii. 27. Here " all 
their enemies''' were to turn their backs, and '^ all the people'' to be 
*' destroyed." Does this mean that God would let all their enemies 
escape, but kill all their friends, or that he would first kill " all the 
people" and then make them " turn their backs," an army of run- 
away corpses ? If these commands required the destruction of all 
the individuals, the Mosaic law was at war with itself, for directions 
as to the treatment of native residents, form a large part of it. See 
Lev. xix. 34 ; xxv. 35, 36 ; xx. 22. Ex. xxiii. 9 ; xxii. 21. Deut. 
1. 16, 17; X. 17, 19. xxvii. 19. We find, also that provision was 
made for them in the cities of refuge, Num. xxxv. 15. — the glean- 
ings of the harvest and vintage were theirs, Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxiii. 
22 ; — the blessings of the Sabbath, Ex. xx. 10 ; — the privilege of 
offering sacrifices secured, Lev. xxii. 18; and stated religious in- 
struction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12. Now does this same 
law require the individual extermination of those whose lives and in- 
terests it thus protects ? These laws were given to the Israelites, 
long before they entered Canaan ; and they must have inferred from 
them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land were to continue 
m it, under their government. Again Joshua was selected as the 
leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan. He 
had no discretionary power. God's commands were his official instruc- 
tions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation ; refusing to 
carry them out rebellion and treason. Saul was rejected from being 
kmg for disobeying God's commands in a single instance. Now, if 



71 

God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanites 
Joshua disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, the Is- 
raelites still " dwelt among t'hem^'' and each nation is mentioned by- 
name. Judg. i. 5, and yet we are told that Joshua " left nothing un- 
done of all that the liOrd commanded Moses ;" and that he " took all 
that land." Josh. xi. 15 — 22. Also, that " there stood not a man of 
all their enemies before them." How can this be, if the command 
to destroy enjoined individual extermination, and the command to 
drive out, unconditional expulsion from the country, rather than their 
expulsion from the possession or ownership of it, as the lords of the 
soil ? True, multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but not a case 
can be found in which one was either killed or expelled who acqui- 
esced in the transfer of the territory, and its sovereignty, from the in- 
habitants of the land to the Israelites. Witness the case of Rahab 
and her kindred, and the Gibeonites.* The Canaanites knew of the 
miracles wrought for the Israelites ; and that their land had been 
transferred to them as a judgment for their sins. Josh. ii. 9 — 1 1 ; ix. 
9, 10, 24. Many of them were awed by these wonders, and made 
no resistance. Others defied God and came out to battle. These 
occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate heathen — the 
aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, 
with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that aided in idolatrous 
rites, and the military forces, with the chief profligates of both sexes. 
Many facts corroborate the general position. Such as the multitude 
of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, after they had 
" waxed strong," and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of 

* Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of Ra- 
hab and her kindred, was a violation of ihe command of God. We answer, if it had 
been, we might expect some such intimation. If God had straitly commanded 
them to exterminate all the Canaanites, their pledge to save them alive, was neither 
a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If %m conditional des- 
truction was the import of the command, would God have permitted such an act to 
pass without rebuke? Would he have established such a precedent when Is- 
rael had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then striking the first blow 
of a half century war % What if they had passed their word to Rahab and the Gib- 
eonites 1 Was that more binding than God's command? So Saul seems to have 
passed Ws wordtoAgag; yet Samuel hewed him in pieces, because in saving his 
life, Saul had violated God's command. When Saul sought to slay the Gibeonites 
in "his zeal for the children of Israel and .Tudah," God sent upon Israel a three years» 
famine for it. When David inquired of them what atonement he should make, they 
say, "The man that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining 
inamj of the coasts of l3rael,]et seven of hi? sons be delivered," &c. 2 Sam. xxii. 1 — 6. 



72 

their name — the Canaanites, Philistines and others, who became 
proselytes — as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite — Rahab, who mar- 
ried one of the princes of Jitdah — Ittai — the six hundred Gitites — 
David's body guard. 2 Sam. xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, 
adopted into the tribe of Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 
Chron. xv. 18, and 1 Chron. xxvi. 45 — Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron 
xxvi. 30, 31, 33. Jephunneh the father of Caleb, the Kenite, regis- 
tered in the genealogies of the tribe of Judah, and the one hundred and 
fifty thousand Canaanites, employed by Solomon in the building of the 
Temple.* Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to save 
a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those 
who would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12 — 14. Further — the terms 
employed in the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites, 
such as, " drive out," " put out," " cast out," " expel," " dispossess," &c. 
seem used interchangably with "consume," "destroy," "overthrow," 
&,c., and thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. 
As an illustration of the meaning generally attached ''to these and 
similar terms, we refer to the history of the Amelekites. " I will 
utterly put out the remembrance of Amelek from under heaven. Ex. 
xxvii. 14. " Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amelek from 
under heaven ; thou shalt not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. "Smite 
Amelek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, 
but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." 
1 Sam. XV. 2, 3. " Saul smote the Amelekites, and took Agag the 
king of the Amelekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the 
PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." Verses 7, 8. In verse 20, 
Saul says, " I have brought Agag, the king of Amelek, and have ut- 
terly destroyed the Amelekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. we find the Ame- 
lekites marching an army into Israel, and sweeping every thing be- 
fore them — and this in about eighteen years after they had all been 
" utterly DESTROYED !" Dcut. XX. 16, 17, wiU probably be quoted 
against the preceding view. We argue that the command in these 
verses, did not include all the individuals of the Canaanitish nations, 
but only the inhabitants of the cities, (and even those conditionally,) 
because, only the inhabitants of cities are specified, — "of the cities of 
these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Cities 

* If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to have 
employed them in the erection of the temple,— what was it but the climax of impiety? 
As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh, or make their sons pass 
through the fire to Moloch. 



73 

then, as now, were pest-houses of vice — they reeked with abomina- 
tioiis little practiced in the country. On this account their influence 
would be far more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country. 
Besides, they were the centres of idolatry — there were the temples 
and altars, and idols, and priests, without number. Even their build- 
ings, streets, and public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry. 
The reason assigned in the 18th verse for exterminating them, 
strengthens the idea, — " that they teach you not to do after all the 
abominations which they have done unto their gods." This would 
be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals around 
them, as all were idolaters ; but God commanded them, in certain 
cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with any of them woiald be 
perilous — with the inhabitants of the cities peculiarly, and of the Ca- 
naanitish cities, pre-eminently so. The 10th and 11th verses con- 
tain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to 
be summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the offer of 
peace — if it was accepted, the inhabitants became trihUaries — but if 
they came out against Israel in battle, the men were to be killed, and 
the women and little ones saved alive. The 15th verse restricts this 
lenient treatment to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th 
directs as to the disposal of the inhabitants of Canaanitish cities. 
They were to save alive " nothing that breathed." The common 
mistake has been, in supposing that the command in the 15th verse 
refers to the lohole system of directions preceding, commencing with 
the 10th, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in 
the 12th, 13th, and 14th, making a distinction between those Canaan- 
itish cities \hd.i fought, and the cities afar o/that fought — in one case 
destroying the males and females, and in the other, the males only. 
The offer of peace, and the conditional preservation, were as really 
guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. Their inhabitants were 
not to be exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle. 
But let us settle this question by the " law and the testimony." 
" There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel 
save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon ; all others they took in 
battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they 
should COME OUT AGAINST IsRAEL IN BATTLE, that he might de- 
stroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might 
destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xix. 19, 20. 
That is, if they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would 



74 

Iiave had " favor " shown them, and would not have been " destroyed 
utterly. ^^ The great design was to transfer the territory of the Ca- 
naanites to the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovreignty in 
every respect; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, 
and jurisprudence, and their system of religion, with all its rights 
and appendages ; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, adminis- 
tered by Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. 
In a word the people were to be denationalized, their political exis- 
tence annihilated, their idol temples, altars, images groves and hea- 
then rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute. Those who 
resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while 
those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the 
choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land ;* or 
acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries, 
under the protection of the government ; or resistance to the execu- 
tion of the decree, with death. " And it shall come to pass, if they 
will diligently learii the ways of my people, to 6 -ear by my name, the 
Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear ^ ^ Baal ; then shall 

THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE." 



[The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much 
wider range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the 
outline would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has there- 
fore been thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and 
classes of proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, 
afford some facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted 
investigation.] 

* Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the tidings 
of Israel's approach, did God's command require the Israelites to chase them to the 
ends of the earth, and hunt them out, until every Canaanite was destroyed? It is 
too preposterous for belief, and yet it follows legitimately from that construction, 
which interprets the terms "consume," "destroy," " destroy utterly," &c. to mean 
unconditional, individual extermination. 



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